Light After Trauma

Holiday gatherings are a struggle for anyone who battles with an eating disorder. With society's ever-growing encouragement to avoid "holiday weight gain", it can feel harder than ever to be able to enjoy yourself during big meals. Tune into this week's episode for tips on how to manage your eating disorder symptoms this holiday season (Spoiler alert: You should NOT go all day without eating in order to prepare for a big meal!).

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hi, everybody. Welcome back. You know the drill. It's another episode of the Light After Trauma Podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari, thrilled as ever to be here with you today. At the time of this recording, it is just a few days before Thanksgiving. So we are going to be talking about how to avoid binge eating and other eating disordered related behaviors, specifically during the holiday or right after, or right before, because I know that's a really, really difficult time for folks. That's when people tend to binge eat or purge by use of whether it's exercise or laxatives or what have you. So we are going to get into that. It might be a little bit shorter of an episode today, but bear with me as there's a lot going on and I am actually getting a minor test/procedure done this week. So yeah, it's been very, very busy.

Alyssa Scolari [01:32]:

Next week we actually will be back with a guest episode. This is the first guest episode we have had in quite a while. So I'm looking forward. I have finally been feeling well enough that I have been able to record podcast episodes with people again. So thank you for all of your well wishes.

Alyssa Scolari [01:48]:

Now, just a few housekeeping things before. I mean, I really don't even have enough words to be able to express how I feel. Thank you just doesn't seem to do it justice. It doesn't really seem to accurately reflect how I feel.

Alyssa Scolari [02:14]:

Now, the last several months have been really difficult for me and I have just been feeling, especially this week, just really sad with the state of the world. I know for a lot of trauma survivors, there tends to be this like phenomenon where we feel in some way, shape, or form at our core, like we are not going to live as long as other people. We always feel like we're dying or we're going to die. And this might not be true for everyone, but it is true for so many trauma survivors and I struggle with that. I've definitely been feeling a little bit of like some type of, I guess, existential dread or just maybe grief, just I think pure grief at the state of the world and feeling so sad at certain things that are going on. And I was feeling really hopeless this week.

Alyssa Scolari [03:16]:

A few days ago, I was actually crying, which I probably do once every other day. So it's not that big of a deal, but I was crying and I was just sort of saying to my husband that I just feel like, especially as mental health professionals, we are working so hard, but the mental health crisis has grown so much. And so much of it is because of the state of the world and it's just breaking my heart. I was feeling helpless and I happened to go look at my email and I saw that I had an email from my Patreon account.

Alyssa Scolari [03:59]:

Sometimes I advertise this on the show that I do have a Patreon, which is just this account where people can go and they can donate however much money they would like per month, or it can be a one-time donation, and that money goes directly to supporting the podcast. I've had that Patreon for months now and I don't have any patrons. I did have one patron that was my dear friend Owen. I was supporting his podcast. He was supporting my podcast. That was lots of fun, but I hadn't had anyone who sort of was just a listener who had signed up to become a patron, which is okay. I understand with the state of the world, people really don't have a whole lot to give, so that's totally fine.

Alyssa Scolari [04:49]:

But I happened to get an email from my Patreon and I got my first patron, which was so amazing and so exciting, but what was also really, really exciting was the message that this patron left for me. And I'm going to read a little bit of it. It was very, very special to me. I hope that this does not come off as bragging in any way because it's not, but I just thought that I would read it and I'm not going to name this person. I'm going to keep any kind of details about this person out of the message, but the gist of it is:

Alyssa Scolari [05:31]:

"Hey there Alyssa. I've recently discovered your podcast and I love, love, love it/you. I am literally going to love listening to every single episode over the coming weeks. So far, everything I've listened to has touched me so deeply to know that I'm not alone in what I've experienced/am still experiencing. I'm only just realizing that I have lived my whole adult life with CPTSD following my childhood experience, which I would've never called trauma before, but now I realize that's exactly what it was. I loved your recent episode about this very topic. It felt like you were speaking just to me. You are so amazing and I love how you express all of these difficult things so eloquently and your sense of humor shines through always. I feel like we're friends already, so please keep it up because your words are helping me so much as I continue on my healing journey."

Alyssa Scolari [06:33]:

I got this message and I absolutely lost it. I needed a good 24 hours before I could even respond just to process the depth of what this message said. And there's more to it, but I don't want to go through everything because I don't want to risk that person possibly being identified. But suffice it to say it was just the kindest message about the ways in which that this person has felt helped and supported from the podcast, and that helped me so much to shift out of this feeling of helplessness to like, "Oh yeah, look at what I am doing." Sometimes it can feel a little bit isolating because I'm talking into this microphone and I don't fully know who's listening. I can see numbers, I can see what my downloads are like, but I don't know if people are truly benefiting from this.

Alyssa Scolari [07:33]:

So when people reach out and they tell me, it really, really helps to me, and it really helped pull me out of the depression. And it just, it meant so much to me. The kind words, and of course becoming a patron and pledging a certain amount of money, it was so kind and so generous and I just really appreciate that.

Alyssa Scolari [07:56]:

The goal of the podcast is to continue to spread awareness and get the word out to as many people as possible, because I do believe that everyone deserves access to free or somewhat free mental health care. It's vital, but it's not free. So that was part of the goal of this podcast and it does cost...

Alyssa Scolari [08:22]:

Part of the reason why we even have the Patreon set up is because it does cost quite a bit of money to run this podcast between everything that goes into it. Having to purchase the website or the software that puts the podcast out into to the world, having to purchase all the materials to make all the artwork and to do all of the social media posts and the editing, all of that stuff comes down... It costs about $800 a month, thereabouts, to be able to keep this podcast rolling. And that is not me complaining, because I'm not right. Obviously if we did not have the funds to be able to do that, I wouldn't be doing it. I would be scaling back. But again, I believe that it's really, really important for people to have access to free mental health care. So this podcast is very important. So I do not mind the money that goes into it.

Alyssa Scolari [09:25]:

With that said, it always is really, really nice because if a few people are able to give $2 a month or $3 a month or $1 a month. Whatever they're able to give, whatever you are able to give goes towards the podcast and it's really, really helpful. It's just very helpful financially and ultimately will create the space and will give me the financial ability to do even more things like create online courses that people can access and things like that.

Alyssa Scolari [10:00]:

Aside from the money, which I am so, so grateful for, and it's so exciting to have my first patron, which by the way, if you are able to give, I would greatly appreciate it. You can go right to the website, which is www.lightaftertrauma.com, or you can go right to the show notes. There's a link in the show notes that says support the podcast. I would greatly appreciate it.

Alyssa Scolari [10:23]:

But aside from the money, this message gave me so much hope and healing at a time where all I could feel was despair. So thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who have reached out to me, who are telling me that you're enjoying what you're hearing. Your words do not go... I don't take that for granted. In fact, I actually keep the messages that I get. I put them into like a Word document and I print them out. And of course, nobody's name is used, nothing like that, no identifying information. Of course, your privacy is very important to me, but the messages I keep and on my lowest days, I go back in and I pull them out and I am reminded of the family that I have made, the family I have all across the world because of this podcast. So thank you. Before I absolutely sob, I will move on, but just thank you. I, I just can't... I don't have words.

Alyssa Scolari [11:38]:

With that said, let's transition a little bit into the upcoming holiday or holidays, whatever holidays that are coming up that you are celebrating. I know lots of people tend to get very, very nervous about Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving tends to be... I actually remember being an eating disorder treatment. And when I was there, it was sort of a general consensus that Thanksgiving was one of the most triggering holidays for people who struggle with eating disorders. And for me, it was so difficult. Thanksgiving was a huge, huge binge day for me, huge binge day. And it wasn't just Thanksgiving. It was sort of the days leading up to Thanksgiving, then during Thanksgiving, and then after Thanksgiving. So this episode is really focused on how to function and how to beat the binge, how to beat relapsing when we have big holidays like this.

Alyssa Scolari [12:50]:

Now the first thing that I recommend is you treating the day like any other day. What do I mean by that? So many people... I remember growing up and a lot of the adults in my life being like, "Oh my God, I haven't eaten all day to prepare for this meal. I am starving." So I naturally just sort of assumed that when you were going to have a big meal, you weren't supposed to eat all day. So I didn't for so many years. And then what would happen is I would skip breakfast, skip like lunch, and we would have Thanksgiving dinner and I would binge and I would be just hoarding food into my mouth. And when people weren't looking, I was like taking extra bites or scooping food onto my plate when I thought no one was looking at me because I couldn't get enough, because I was so famished. It doesn't need to be like that.

Alyssa Scolari [14:00]:

So the most important thing is for you to wake up and eat. And that might go against everything that you are eating disorder tells you to do. That might go against what the people in your family are doing. That might go against what your partner is doing, but you need to eat your food. It is so important. So have a good breakfast. If you don't have lunch, okay, because sometimes people eat... I know most people have Thanksgiving dinner at like two or three o'clock. In my family, we always had it at like six o'clock, 6:30. So you can bet I was eating breakfast and lunch. I was having all the meals. And then when it was time to eat, I wasn't ravenous and ready to just eat everything in sight, without even thinking about what I was eating, or really checking in with my body at all.

Alyssa Scolari [15:05]:

The next thing I want to talk about is a lot of things you see on the internet will say, which I think that people think this is helpful, and I don't necessarily think it is. So a lot of people will say things like, "Well, you need to shift your focus of the holiday. Don't make the holiday about food. What you need to do is you need to make the holiday about gratitude or family or Jesus or this or that, or whatever." Whatever it is that you want to make the holiday about, so many people will tell us like, "Don't make that holiday about food." And I'm going to call BS on that because I think that that too sets us up for binge eating. And the reason why I think that is because it is not realistic to pretend like the food doesn't matter on a holiday.

Alyssa Scolari [16:04]:

There's a reason why people love going to Epcot in Disney, in Orlando, Florida. And that is because you get to eat around the world. Yes, it's really nice to look at the knickknacks and the statues and the other different types of cultural things that are in the different parts of the worlds in Epcot. I say worlds with air quotes, because it's all in the same park, but what people go there for is the food and the drink. And that is because food is so deeply tied into our culture. Food is so important. And when we try to tell ourselves that we need to shift out of being excited about the food, and instead think about other things, then we're denying our culture. We're denying who we are on a fundamental level, which listen, I'm a foodie. I am a foodie.

Alyssa Scolari [17:06]:

If somebody tells me not to make a big deal out of a food that's going to be there, I get flooded with shame because it goes against who I am quite frankly. I'm coming for the food. I mean, I'm staying for the company, don't get me wrong, but I'm coming for the food. And that is okay. It is okay to love the food. So allow yourself to be excited for the food. Please don't do what's so much of the internet and diet culture and disguise is going to tell you to do, which is to like make a gratitude list.

Alyssa Scolari [17:42]:

Listen, if you want to make a gratitude list, by all means, please do. I think that that is a great idea to be able to shift your mindset and get you in a good head space, but also make sure if you do a gratitude list, that one of the things you're grateful for is the bombass food you're about to eat because it is so important. Food is a part of life and we are meant to enjoy food. And certain foods nourish our bodies and other foods nourish our souls and we need both and we love both. Amen. Okay, I'm done with that part.

Alyssa Scolari [18:22]:

The next thing I want to talk about is figuring out what your boundaries are going to look like. And some of this ties into, and you can find this in an older episode that I put out a few weeks ago about setting boundaries with your family around the holidays, but it's important to touch on... So I'm going to touch on it again briefly. You want to make sure that you are sitting by people or surrounding yourself with people who are not going to engage in the diet talk. So please, please, please if you need to send this to a family member, this is the message and the notice to not bring up diets during the holidays, during the meals. Please, please, please. And don't surround yourself with people who you think are going to bring that up.

Alyssa Scolari [19:24]:

Listen, sometimes it's unavoidable. I know for me, it was unavoidable. I had no choice. But you sit at a table with people at certain times in my life who can talk about nothing but, "Oh, I have to work this off." And, "Oh, I can't have this because it's too much sodium," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes you can't get around it. Sometimes you have no choice.

Alyssa Scolari [19:46]:

Here's what I would like to recommend. If somebody starts to talk about the calories or the carbs or the fat content or the salt content, get up and go to the bathroom. Give yourself permission to get up and go to the restroom. As uncomfortable as it may make you, get up because you don't deserve to have to sit there and listen to that crap. And it's not even just about that very moment, because this is what often happened to me when I was in the height of my binge eating or in the height of my anorexia. What would happen to me is I would be sitting with people and somebody would say something. For example, I went to my cousin's... Was it a cousin? I don't know. Some family member's baby shower... No, wedding shower? I don't know. Some family member shower. This was like in the throes of my anorexia. So I had lost a significant amount of weight, but because I was heavier, I was being praised for it.

Alyssa Scolari [21:06]:

I saw this audio clip on TikTok and I don't know whose audio clip it was. So I can't give them credit. But if you happen to hear this and you want the credit, please reach out to me and let me know. But it was this audio that said: when you are already thin and you develop an eating disorder, you go to the hospital. But when you have fat on your body and you develop an eating disorder, you are a success story.

Alyssa Scolari [21:33]:

So at that point in my life, at that shower, I was a success story to everybody. People could not get enough of me at that shower. "Oh my God, how did you lose so much weight? You look amazing," blah, blah, blah. I had a piece cake, a singular piece of cake at the shower. And I went to go sit down at the table and a family member from three... I shit you not, three tables over, stood up. She stood the fuck up and she said to me, "You better be carefully eating that cake because I don't want to see you put all that weight back on." [inaudible 00:22:12] the shame and the guilt.

Alyssa Scolari [22:16]:

So in that moment, did I do anything about it? No. Because I was such a people pleaser back then and I didn't know how to fully be in touch with my rage, I just laughed it off and just said, "Oh yeah, don't worry about it. I'll be fine." And I maybe took two bites of my cake, couldn't eat anymore. But then I went home that night. And while it wasn't necessarily on my conscious mind that content or that comment, that night and the next day I found myself binging and binging and binging and engaging in purging tactics and I could not stop. Looking back on it, I understand now that I felt so much rage that that family member said that to me, that it led me to use my eating disorder because so much of my eating disorder was about my ability or my lack of ability to feel comfortable and confident in my anger and to be able to use my anger appropriately. So I just ate to stuff all of my emotions down and it was the night after the shower. It was the day after. It was horrible.

Alyssa Scolari [23:34]:

And that is how most Thanksgivings would go for me too. I would hear at the kitchen or at the table about, "Oh, I'm, I got to make sure I get on the scale and get back on weight watchers on Monday," and all of these really triggering things. And maybe in the moment I wasn't thinking I was very affected by it, but then I would bring leftovers home from Thanksgiving. And then that night and the next day I was binging on all the leftovers. Looking back on it now, I realize it's because I was feeling pissed off and constricted and triggered by people who were just obsessing over dieting.

Alyssa Scolari [24:22]:

So it is really important. Move your seat, try to change your seat, try to sit next to people who are safe and have a support. If you can't have a support when you are at that meal, then make sure you have somebody on the phone. And if somebody starts talking about dieting and exercise, just go to the bad bathroom, go to the bathroom. And if you get up and go to the bathroom enough times, people get it. People actually start to catch on and then it's not uncomfortable because people start to see what's happening. Again, not everybody, but either way, at least if you get up and go to the bathroom, or if you say, "Oh my gosh, somebody's calling me. I really need to take this. Excuse me." Anything. "Oh, I need a glass of water. I'll be right back." Let it take you five minutes to get a glass of water. You don't owe anybody anything.

Alyssa Scolari [25:19]:

Here's some other things that I have found really, really helpful. Check in with your body throughout the day. If you can't bring a notebook with you, then I find it really helpful to at least go into the notes section on your phone and start tracking your hunger and fullness levels. Not to judge. Try to track them without judgment, but just to get a sense of where you are. Again, if you want to eat more, that's okay. Let yourself eat more, but sometimes during big meals like this, we tend to check out. Trauma causes us to be disconnected from our bodies anyway. But then when you have a big meal and a holiday on top of that, we're super checked out and dissociated and not in our bodies at all. So just have an intentional check-in, do a one to 10 hunger fullness scale and just take a note. This might be triggering for some people. So if you feel like it would be triggering for you, then please don't do it. But I know that for me, I had to intentionally...

Alyssa Scolari [26:34]:

In the earlier stages of my recovery, I had to intentionally write down what exactly I was feeling in terms of like, I had to give it a numerical value in order for me to really feel connected with my body at all. If you think that would help you, please do that.

Alyssa Scolari [26:54]:

Here's something else I want you to remember. You are not going to gain a significant amount of weight from eating past fullness. You don't have to eat past fullness on this day because the very, very foods, the very exact same foods that will be on that Thanksgiving table or that Christmas table, or that Hanukkah table are the same foods you can have all year round. I feel like nobody tells us that. Those same mashed potatoes, we can have all year round. You can roast a turkey all year round. You can have green bean casserole, cranberry sauce. Heck yeah, it's in season for the fall. Have it all year round. You do not need to overeat because you can eat those foods time and time and time again, however much your heart desires, as long as you're checking in with your body.

Alyssa Scolari [27:56]:

With that being said, if you do overeat, if you do eat well past fullness, that's okay too, because eating well past fullness on a holiday meal is not going to make you gain weight. It's simply not. It takes a lot more calories than people think to be able to cause true weight gain, which means... When I say true weight gain, our weight fluctuates. Especially if you are a woman, your weight fluctuates so much because of where you're at in your cycle, because of water weight, inflammation, what have you. So when I say true weight, I mean it takes a lot of calories for like one extra pound of fat to form on your body. I'm talking a lot, a lot. And I forget the exact number and I tried to look it up, but I could not find the source where I read it before. So if I find it, I will definitely let you know. But trust me, it's not as easy as people think it is to truly gain like pounds and pounds of fat. And you sure as hell are in doing it in one meal on Thanksgiving.

Alyssa Scolari [29:13]:

So if you eat past fullness, dude, it is fine. It is so, so fine. I want you to tell yourself this over and over and over again, you are allowed to eat past fullness. It doesn't make you any of the things that you're telling yourself in your head. Doesn't make you a slob. It doesn't make you fat. It doesn't make you out of control. It doesn't make you any of that. Fat isn't even... Fat is an adjective. Don't even get me started with that word, but I know these are the things that we tell ourselves. So please remember it is so very difficult actually, to gain a ton of fat because you overate at one meal on Thanksgiving.

Alyssa Scolari [30:05]:

Which leads me to my next point that I want to bring up, which is like exercising. I used to wake up early every Thanksgiving and go workout because I thought I needed to burn all the calories I was going to be eating. Oh dear Lord, I was so wrong. Speaking of calories, it is like nearly impossible to use exercise to burn off a meal. You would have to do so much exercise. Exercise doesn't necessarily control your weight either. And I know there are a lot of people who might come at me with this one, but I have spoken to enough dieticians, enough registered dieticians, enough intuitive eating experts to know at this point that exercise truly does not affect your weight all that much. And you really can't burn off your Thanksgiving meal or your Christmas meal. It doesn't work like that. Of course, diet culture is going to lead you to believe that you need to get to the gym five days a week, at least to be able to burn off all the turkey and the stuffing and whatever, but it doesn't work like that at all.

Alyssa Scolari [31:32]:

So please remember that if you want to exercise, great. If you want to go take a walk after your meal, before your meal just to get some mindfulness in, just to be able to connect with your body and see where you're at, if you want to do some yoga, phenomenal have at it. But please do not do so with the intention of burning off the food that you plan to eat or the food that you have eaten because it just doesn't work like that.

Alyssa Scolari [32:14]:

That I believe are all of the tips that I have to survive a holiday meal. I want you to remember that it is just one holiday, that's it. It's just one meal. And yes, there is the season where we are really enjoying cookies, but here's the thing. You can have cookies all year round. What causes so much binge eating is this concept of, "Oh, well I only get it this one time. I'm going to have to go hard at this meal. I am ready." People love to say, "Oh, I brought my elastic pants." Or the ever condescending and insulting, "Oh, I brought my fat pants today." Ugh, I hate it. I apologize ahead of time if I sound pretty cynical, I don't mean to disparage your thought process. If you do this way, that's not my intention. So I do apologize if I'm coming off a little bit cynical. I just get so frustrated at how bad we are made to feel about our bodies simply from enjoying some good food.

Alyssa Scolari [33:34]:

So you are not going to be needing fat pants or elastic pants because of a meal. And those types of foods that you're having at the holiday, you can have any time of the year. In fact, I encourage you to, because as I was saying earlier, it's when we restrict ourselves and tell us that we can only have stuffing on Thanksgiving one time a year, that we tend to find ourselves binging on it. For me, as I started to allow myself to have pumpkin pie and stuffing and cheesecake and what have you during non-holiday days, it started to become more normalized in my life. So then when I go to Thanksgiving, I'm not in this like my eyes are bigger than my stomach mode, where I'm just inhaling everything that I can, because I'm not going to get it again for another year. I know that if I wake up the next day and decide that I want cheesecake, I can have that cheesecake.

Alyssa Scolari [34:42]:

I want you to try to adapt the same kind of mentality here. It takes a long time. So please have compassion. Please be patient with yourself. Please just take it one minute at a time and please know that if you are triggered and if you have a moment of relapse, it is okay. You are still loved. You are not alone. We are all with you and I am holding you in the light. Have a lovely holiday and holidays to come. Take great care, and we will be back next week with another episode.

Alyssa Scolari [35:20]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram we are @lightaftertrauma, and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

Daylight savings time and the decreasing temperatures have some of us feeling blue, but it doesn't have to be this way! If the lack of sunlight and cold weather have you feeling down, tune in for some tips on how to thrive this winter.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. This is episode 69, I believe. Wow. It is wild that I have almost 70 episodes out, but I love it. I am loving it. Real quick, I just wanted to ask everybody to bear with me. I've been listening back to some of the more recent episodes, especially the solo ones, and the sound is a little bit echoey. And I was aware of it when I first moved into the new home and got a new office. This office is different because it has hardwood floors. So I've had to do a lot to try to make the space something that would be very sound absorbent. I am pretty particular about sound quality. So I am aware of it. None of you have said anything because you are all wonderful and amazing human beings, but I notice it and I just wanted to let you know that I'm aware of it.

Alyssa Scolari [01:25]:

I honestly thought that getting blinds in here would really help, but then I noticed in the episode that I recorded last week, it still sounded a little bit echoey. So I am doing everything I can on my end. I even have this sort of like foam sound absorbent, like casing, that's going around my microphone. So I'm trying to speak directly into that. But I just think it's going to be a little bit of time before I can buy some more things to fill up this space. We moved a couple months ago, so I do have a rug and all those good things, but I am doing my best. So bear with me for the time being, if this is a little bit echoey.

Alyssa Scolari [02:15]:

Okay, I just want to move right into then saying thank you to those of you who reached out to me on Instagram over the last couple of weeks, it's been really exciting. I feel like I have so many friends in all different parts of the world. And I love hearing from you and meeting you... Well, e-meeting you, I should say. So thank you. It's been really exciting. And if you have not done so already, please feel free to go give us a follow on Instagram. My handle is Light After Trauma. It's just the name of this podcast. We are putting out some good content and feel free to shoot me a DM and say hi. It's been really fun getting to meet people.

Alyssa Scolari [03:00]:

On that note... Oh no, I'm lying. There's one more thing that I wanted to say. And that was, if you haven't done so already, please go leave us a review wherever you like to listen. It would mean so much. It is really helpful in terms of being able to get this content out to more people. The more reviews and ratings that the podcast gets, the more people that it reaches. Basically the more press it gets essentially to put it pointblank. It's really about the ratings and the reviews, and it's really important to me to be able to get this content out to as many people as possible because the mental health crisis is real right now. It is probably the worst that I've ever seen it to date. The pandemic has so much to do with it and there are just simply not enough therapists to meet the needs of everybody who is searching for help and support and comfort. And it is only continuing to get worse, unfortunately.

Alyssa Scolari [04:15]:

So I just want to make sure that as many people out there are aware that there is some free content. If they're not able to get into a therapist, if it's scheduling purposes, if it's that they can't find a good therapist, if it's financial reasons, I want this content to be available for people. So I appreciate this. Thank you in advance for all of the support, as always.

Alyssa Scolari [04:45]:

And speaking of mental health and the need being in increasing demand for services, we are talking today about seasonal depression or the blues or whatever you want to call it. Some people have an issue with calling it depression and I think that's more because of the stigma surrounding depression, but I mean... I don't know. Some people call it the blues, the winter blues, whatever it may be. I call it seasonal depression. It is real. It is a very real thing and I actually didn't think that I struggled with this, but over the last few years, I've really started to struggle. And now that daylight savings time has happened, it is getting dark super early and it is cold. Depending on where you're at... Allison, if you're over there in San Diego, it might still be sunny and warm, and this might not pertain to you, but it is still getting dark a little bit earlier.

Alyssa Scolari [05:54]:

So whether it's the darkness that is a little bit depressing for you or whether it is the cold weather that is depressing for you, this is going to be a good episode because I am talking about tips to combat seasonal depression. I think that these tips are really helpful, not just for now, because right now we're in this place where we have the excitement of the holidays upon us, but after January 1st, really, I feel like those months from like January to March before the warmer weather gets here are really a struggle for people. So these tips are helpful, I think, right now as... basically up until I think it's December 21st, that it's just going to keep getting darker earlier and earlier. So it's helpful for right now, but it's also helpful for after the holidays, when we're sort of just waiting for the winter weather to roll around. There really aren't any holidays. There's not much going on.

Alyssa Scolari [07:03]:

I'm going to be talking about some of the things that really help me. So I'm going to be talking about a few different products that I use. None of these are advertisements. I am simply letting you know what products I enjoy using.

Alyssa Scolari [07:20]:

The first thing that I think can really help you is using a vitamin D supplement. And again, disclaimer, here, please, please speak to your doctor or your healthcare professional. This is not medical advice. I am not a doctor. So this is simply a suggestion that you might want to consider bringing up with your healthcare professional, with your doctor, your general practitioner, whoever. But vitamin D comes from the sun and that is something that in the wintertime, we tend to lack. I'm even deficient in vitamin D in the summer time, because I don't go outside as much because I am so prone to getting burned. Even with 100 SPF on, I get burned. So I'm vitamin D deficient all year round and I notice a huge difference.

Alyssa Scolari [08:16]:

Vitamin D comes in, I think, many different things. I think it comes in like gel capsules and then I take it in a liquid form. So I just have like two drops on my tongue every day and it is really, really helpful for me. So during this time of year, when we are getting less sunshine, it is important to make sure that we are not deficient in anything. And that doesn't just go for vitamin D. That goes for honestly, all of the supplements. I know that for me in the wintertime, for whatever reason, it's a pattern for me. I tend to be deficient in B12. And B12 when you're deficient in it can cause lots of anxiety, lots of depression, fatigue, et cetera.

Alyssa Scolari [09:05]:

So it's a good idea to talk to your doctor, and it is an even better idea to try to get some blood work as well, just to see where you're allow levels are at. That way you know if it's something that you need because having those supplements, especially vitamin D, can help get you through the darker colder months. And again, please talk to your doctor or your primary care physician before doing anything that is not medical advice, but just something you should talk to your doctor about.

Alyssa Scolari [09:42]:

The next thing that I have found to be really helpful is avoiding triggering TV shows. I know that the nighttime is when people love to put on the TV. I love to put on the TV too. I am no stranger to television. I love TV, but there are certain shows that I have found that if I start watching at night, especially during the winter and like the fall months when it's dark by four o'clock, I get really depressed. That includes like My True Crime shows. I was watching... What was I watching? Ugh. I was watching Burn Notice. If you have not watched Burn Notice and you like action-packed, funny... It's all fictional, but it has Jeffrey Donovan in it and Sharon Gless and Gabrielle Anwar, Bruce Campbell, some of the most amazing... Jeffrey Donovan is the most amazing actor I have seen. I have no idea why he is not Hollywood's biggest, most famous celebrity, but I digress.

Alyssa Scolari [10:57]:

Anyway, Burn Notice is one of my favorite shows of all time, but there is violence and it can get a little bit emotional at times. So I cannot watch Burn Notice. In fact, I actually had to... The show is seven seasons and I had to stop watching it in the middle of season seven because I noticed that I was getting like... It was depressing me. I was really getting in my head about the show and that's a real thing that happens to so many of us. I know I'm not the only one. So be very intentional about the shows that you watch this time of year.

Alyssa Scolari [11:38]:

I personally have been loving, don't laugh at me, loving The Muppets. If you have Disney+, there is a entire section dedicated to The Muppets and there's actually like a comedy. I think it's like a spinoff of The Office. Again, don't judge me for this, but I have never seen The Office. I've seen like bits and pieces. I am more of a Parks and Rec kind of girl, but The Muppets I think is like a spinoff of The Office. Unfortunately, it was canceled after one season, but you need to go and watch that season. It is hysterical and Pepe the King Prawn as the... Oh, he's my favorite Muppet of all time, please don't get me started. But that is something for me that is hysterical. It is not triggering. And The Muppets have like, I think they have a bunch of different movies on there too. So we saw a video or a movie with... Well, I think it was Muppets Most Wanted. It is just hysterical and you need to go watch it if you haven't.

Alyssa Scolari [12:58]:

What I'm trying to say here is I want you to watch shows that are more like that. Doesn't necessarily need to be The Muppets. You can put on a Disney movie. You can put on really any show. You can put on Friends, you can put on... I mean, really into the older stuff, like some 90 shows I've been watching lately or some like early 2000 shows, but be very, very intentional about not watching something that's going to be super triggering in any way, shape or form. Enough about TV, because honestly I could talk about TV shows all day.

Alyssa Scolari [13:39]:

Another tip that I have found really helpful is the use of candles and diffusers. I have both. So I have a diffuser that I really love and they're not super expensive. I bought mine on Amazon, I think. And mine has like... It lights up. It turns to all different colors. And I really like putting not so much like a lavender in there. I like the lavender when it's nighttime, because lavender, I think is supposed to help with relaxation. But when it's like four, five o'clock and it's pitch black outside, and I know I have a few more clients or a few more hours of work, or I need to cook dinner, I will pop on maybe like a citrusy scent of some sort. And that will really reenergize me and make me feel a lot better.

Alyssa Scolari [14:36]:

I of course, love candles. I was on the hunt for candles that were a little bit cleaner, that didn't have so many paraffins in them, because I was getting a ton of headaches from the candles that I... This particular brand, I'm not going to out them, but I was using this particular brand of candles. They're a very popular company and I just found that I was getting headaches all the time. So I had to stop using them for a while, but I discovered this one company... What is it called? I think it's called 1803. They're on Instagram. You can go look them up and they have a website. I actually bought a couple candles that they had in a local place near me, but their candles are amazing. They smell so great that... I was actually burning one last night and when I woke up this morning... I blew it out before I went to bed. When I woke up this morning, my house still smelled like that candle. I think the name of the candle is Cookies for St. Nick. And yes, I've already broken out the Christmas candles. I mean, I have. I absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [15:53]:

So candles, really important, but try to get ones that have some cleaner ingredients. I think that the 1803 company, their candles can be in my opinion, a bit on the pricier side, but nothing that you... I don't think you would pay anything more or less for a candle that you would get really anywhere else. The only other place I've seen candles that are cheaper, that have clean ingredients are HomeGoods. They're kind of hard to find, but if you go search at HomeGoods, you can find a great candle for like 12 bucks. So if you're concerned about finances, go home take at HomeGoods. HomeGoods has some really good candles. And of course you can always grab a diffuser, essential oils, they last forever and they smell amazing.

Alyssa Scolari [16:43]:

Now, this next tip is one of my favorites because this is truly what gets me through the darker and colder days. And that is the use of lighting. I touched on this a little bit with the candles, but lighting is so important. Like when it gets dark at four o'clock, the melatonin starts to kick in in our brain. And the melatonin is sending that signal. Melatonin is associated with sleep. So when it's dark out by four or five o'clock, we're ready for bed at four or five o'clock because that melatonin is there. Now serotonin is associated with wakefulness. So we want to increase those levels of serotonin once it starts to get dark out and ways that you can do that are with lighting. That's one of the reasons why they say, don't look at your phone right before you go to bed at night, because the light from your phone can actually increase the serotonin levels and decrease the melatonin levels, causing you to stay awake for longer. So this is very, very important.

Alyssa Scolari [17:58]:

One of the things that I love is decorating. And yes, I know there's this big, huge debate about when people should decorate for Christmas. I feel like it's been a forever debate. I feel like every year, the celebration of Christmas gets earlier and earlier, and at this point it's like people are celebrating in August. Okay, I get it for me. When it's daylight savings time, I'm ready to decorate for Christmas. And that has nothing to do with rushing Thanksgiving or with not really paying attention to Thanksgiving. That's not it at all. The Christmas decorations, all of the lights truly help me to feel better. They give me the serotonin that I need to continue to get through. My house feels so much sadder when I look around and it's 5:00 PM and I've still got three more hours worth of work to do and all I have is a basic light from the ceiling fan. It saddens me. It truly does.

Alyssa Scolari [19:13]:

But when my house is decorated to the nines, and I'm telling you, do not be ashamed of decorating your house early. When my house is decorated, I feel so much better. I feel cozier, happier. So do not be ashamed. Do not let people tell you that you can't decorate before Thanksgiving. Light your house up like a goddamn Christmas tree. I'm telling you, my house is fucking lit. It is a goddamn Christmas tree in here and I am not sorry about it because it keeps me from feeling super depressed.

Alyssa Scolari [19:47]:

There are some other sources of lighting that I've also found really. So those Himalayan salt lamps, I'm pretty sure you could grab one on Amazon. I don't believe they're overly expensive. I think it kind of depends on what you get, but I don't believe that they're overly pricey. So they have amazing benefits. Himalayan salt lamps are meant to cleanse and deodorize and purify the air. And they're actually also really good for allergies and asthma. They can help with blood flow. They can help with your energy levels. They can help with concentration and really just enhance your overall mood. Those things are the bomb. Highly recommend.

Alyssa Scolari [20:35]:

Other things you can do with lighting. I actually just bought some curtain lights. They were like 10 bucks at Target, but I'm going to hang them in my office here because as I'm recording this, it is 4:30 and it's already pretty much getting dark out. So I'm going to actually hang these curtain lights in my office. They just look very dreamy and very peaceful to me and very cozy and it helps me. I know it can help you too, because light is so, so important for our mental health. That's my favorite. That's lighting. There are so many different things you can do with lighting. Please have fun with it. It is the best and do not be afraid to decorate your whole house for the holidays anytime you want. If you want to leave your Christmas tree up all year, leave your Christmas tree up all year. Do what makes you happy.

Alyssa Scolari [21:35]:

Next is, I've also found that it's really helpful to change up my exercise routine, and it might be helpful for you to do the same. What I mean by changing up your exercise routine, I mean changing up the time that you do it. If you're somebody who typically exercises in the morning, maybe try to exercise at night. If you are exercising at night, then you are releasing endorphins, which is going to help keep that seasonal depression away, pretty plain and simple. Again, that is easier said than done, of course, but even if you work out two days a week, if you can take one of those workouts and move it to the evening, that will help so, so much. That's just the thought and that's something that I have found to be really helpful.

Alyssa Scolari [22:25]:

Now, the next thing is, and this is a hard one, taking breaks from social media in particular at night. Again, the phone with the lighting, it's not necessarily the right kind of lighting that we want when it gets dark out. What happens is it is dark by 5:00, you are sitting on the couch, just got done a long day at work and you're scrolling through a TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or Twitter. And you're seeing everyone else's posts and all of their highlight reels and you're in the comparison game. So it's dark, it's cold, it's gloomy. And here you are on social media, watching other people have the time of their lives, or at least that's what they're portraying on social media. That's not really going to boost your move. That's going to instead make your brain go, "Oh, well look at them. Wherever they are in the world, they still have light. And they did this today and they did that today. And here I am sitting on my couch doing nothing." It is so depressing.

Alyssa Scolari [23:48]:

I have really come a long way in terms of getting my ass off of social media at night, because it makes me so sad. Those same content creators that I love during the day make me sad night because I'm sort of just hanging out and vibing and it's dark, but they're just maybe across the world where it's sunny and they're doing this and doing that. And there are people who are still at the beach and I'm just like, "Oh, well, isn't my life sad." And again, I know I'm not the only one who feels this way because a lot of my clients report this as well. So try to be very intentional about your social media usage at night. I know it's difficult because social media is such a habit for us, including myself, but try doing other things like things that are more hands-on so that you don't find yourself just like two hours into scrolling TikTok.

Alyssa Scolari [24:53]:

Again, things that help for me are I really enjoy puzzling. I am loving puzzles and I get puzzles that are super vibrant in color. I do all of the Thomas Kinkade Disney Puzzles. They're like the 1,000-piece ones, and then what I do is I actually save the puzzle. I'll put an adhesive backing on it and then I'll frame it. It's just something that's really fun for me to do, but I also enjoy... You can paint if you enjoy painting. I love the paint by numbers. If you Google paint by numbers, there's websites that come up and there are adult paint by numbers kits. I love them because I'm not very creative. And when it comes to painting, I really like a structure of being able to color in the lines and it's just fun. It's just a lot of fun to do. And I'm not really in my head when I'm doing it. I'm sort of I'm concentrating and it just helps keep me off social media and gives me something productive and I think exciting to do.

Alyssa Scolari [26:01]:

So feel free to look up any of those things, puzzles, painting, knitting. Honestly, I had a knitting phase. I'm not that good at it. But I had a knitting phase and it really did help me.

Alyssa Scolari [26:18]:

The last few things are being intentional about who you talk to after sunset. So what I mean by this is, especially if you are a trauma survivor who has people in your life that might be triggering to you, people that you have contact with, but the relationship is a little strained for whatever reason. It might not be the best idea to pick up the phone when they call after dark. And that's likely, or that's because you can be triggered by them and we don't want to get triggered. Being dark, so early and cold is already... It's hard enough. So you do not want to then have to deal with possibly being triggered on top of it. So be mindful about who you're talking to. If you know that you are going to be getting a call from somebody, give them a call during the day if you can when it's still light out. That way by the time the evening comes, you have completely enveloped yourself in absolute safety.

Alyssa Scolari [27:26]:

And then another thing that I have found really helpful are plants. I've talked about plants on my social media and I don't know if I've talked about plants on the podcast, but I am a huge plant lover and I have a lot of indoor plants, I guess a lot. How many do I have? Oh, I think I actually have like 11. Yeah, no, that's a lot. All right, I'm officially a plant lover and a plant mom to 11 beautiful plants. And I have these grow lights. Again, you can get them on Amazon. They're called grow lights and you can clip them to the side of a desk or the side of a table, or you can get ones that stand up. I love having them because I have something that I have to take care of.

Alyssa Scolari [28:17]:

So even on those nights when I'm feeling really depressed and really lonely, I know that I have to keep myself safe because I've got to keep my plants safe and healthy and I've got to nurture them. I've got to make sure that they are getting water and food and that I am dusting their leaves. Yes, that is a thing my fellow plant lovers will know. And it might sound and silly, but I really care about my plants because I feel like my plants have greatly increased my... Well, they haven't. I feel like my plants have actually greatly reduced my levels of depression and they also really help to detoxify the air around me. They're a great visual for me and I care about them and I get so excited when I see them doing really well. I actually was gifted and orchid from a friend about a month ago. And I woke up today and saw like a little root that was starting to grow and I got so excited. So it's the little things. It's so helpful for me.

Alyssa Scolari [29:31]:

And it doesn't have to be a plant. It could be really any animal. It also could be a fish. If you are looking for an animal that is pretty low commitment and you're not really a plant person, you don't really want a dog, you don't really want a cat and you need something that's pretty low commitment, low maintenance, go buy a betta fish. When you walk into a PetSmart or a Petco, how many of those betta fish are sitting in those little tiny, four-ounce containers with nowhere to swim? They look so sad. Go get yourself a betta fish. They're colorful. They're fun. They're easy to take care of. They're not going to take up a whole ton of your time and it is something for you to nurture and love. And it's something for you to come home to. That is really helpful.

Alyssa Scolari [30:22]:

So then the last two things are drink tea if you are not a tea drinker. The warmth is really, really helpful and also there's tons of wonderful herbal tea out there that can really do a lot for your mood. So if you're not a tea drinker, I'm sure you can find a tea out there for you. If you are a tea drinker, stock up on some tea this winter, give yourself some options.

Alyssa Scolari [30:50]:

And then lastly, don't forget to stay hydrated. Sometimes depression and fatigue and exhaustion can be dehydration. Again, I'm not saying depression is directly linked to dehydration, but sometimes we can feel really sad and just fatigued and off and it might actually be dehydration. When it gets colder, we don't want to drink as much because well it's cold and we don't feel as thirsty, but we actually need water more than never in the cold weather because it dries us out. And especially the heat, having the heat on in your home, all that heat dries you out as well. So it is so important to stay hydrated, whether that's through tea, whether that's water. Whatever it is you may like, make sure that you are staying hydrated.

Alyssa Scolari [31:42]:

All of these things have helped me so much and will get me through this season of cold and darkness. Especially after the holidays, I struggle the most. I would say January, February, March are the hardest months for me. Actually, part of the reason why I picked a wedding date in March is because March is sort of just like that cold month where we're all ready for the spring. And I was like, "Oh, I need something to celebrate this month." That's part of why we picked March for our wedding date, but that's neither here nor there.

Alyssa Scolari [32:20]:

I hope that these tips help you as... I cannot speak today. I hope that these tips helped you as much as they have helped me. And if you have any other thoughts or questions or comments, you can feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected]. I am wishing you all a wonderful rest of your week, take care, and I am holding you all in the light.

Alyssa Scolari [32:51]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

Whether you've gone no-contact with your family or are feeling anxious about being around family during the holidays, this week's episode can help you figure out the best way to keep the joy alive during this holiday season.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hello, my friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma Podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari, and I am really happy to be here again for another episode, another Tuesday, or whatever day you're listening. It is Sunday as I am recording this. I just want to thank everyone for all of your well wishes. I've touched on it on some episodes in the podcast, but I've mostly talked about it on our Instagram, which if you're not following, by the way, it's Light After Trauma, that is the handle.

Alyssa Scolari [01:01]:

Head on over and check us out. We post some really great content, but I've been sharing a lot about my battle as I go through this process of being diagnosed with endometriosis, which has really been unpleasant and has consisted of severe, severe pain and lots of fatigue. As I'm going through this process, I've been keeping everyone updated on my Instagram, and I just wanted to say thank you so much for the well wishes. I had a good weekend. I had a pretty pain free weekend.

Alyssa Scolari [01:41]:

We will see what the week ahead brings, but it was nice. Today, I was actually able to go outside and do some gardening, which I'm like really impressed by because I've just been so tired and I just have not felt well at all lately. So fingers crossed. I have a doctor's appointment in December where I will find out more information. We will see from there what we are going to do. But I digress. For those of you who don't know much about endometriosis, I will be doing a podcast episode about it at some point.

Alyssa Scolari [02:18]:

Right now I've been doing a lot of solo episodes because, A, I really like solo episodes. I feel like I get to connect with everyone better. And B, I have had to push off a lot of my interviews because I've been in so much pain. Interviews that I have scheduled with other people, I have just had to cancel so many of them. I will be interviewing some more people in the near future. I am really looking forward to it, but I also really like doing these solo episodes.

Alyssa Scolari [02:49]:

And today, we are talking about something that is... It hits really close to home for me, and I know it will for a lot of people. With the holidays approaching, it can be so tough to navigate family issues because everybody's supposed to or is expected to go home for the holidays, right? What is that like famous holiday saying, all hearts come home for the holidays, something like that. But regardless, I mean, the expectation is that the holidays are really upon us.

Alyssa Scolari [03:30]:

Halloween recently passed and now we are in full Thanksgiving mode or Christmas mode or whatever you choose to celebrate. That's sort of the mode that we are in right now. This episode applies not just for these specific holidays, but also for holidays throughout the year in general. It's been really hard for me, and I know I'm not alone in this.

Alyssa Scolari [03:58]:

But since things opened back up post-pandemic, like really this summer, I noticed it, everybody who had put their weddings on holds, I just had so many showers and weddings, wedding showers, baby showers, birthday parties. So much that if I had said yes to absolutely everything, and so much of it was family stuff, if I had said yes to everything, I could have easily had every single day of every single weekend in my entire summer booked.

Alyssa Scolari [04:44]:

I'm sure so many of you are seeing this sort of like rise in events now that it's not as dangerous to go out in public anymore. That was really hard for me. I feel like this episode applies for are really just all times of the year when it comes to navigating family and family events. For many trauma survivors, part of what makes something traumatic can be... You might hear that little... If you hear a little pitter pattern in the background or like a little bit of banging, it's just one of my dogs.

Alyssa Scolari [05:27]:

Don't worry about it. He just wanted to say hi. Bentley wanted to say hi to everybody. But anyway, part of what makes trauma traumatic, part of what causes the of trauma is the lack of support that we have when we are traumatized. And a lot of that lack of support can be found in family members, if the family members aren't the ones doing the trauma or inflicting the trauma in the first place.

Alyssa Scolari [06:01]:

For so many trauma survivors, right, either our family members are our abusers or our family members simply turned the other cheek and did nothing to support us or believe us when we were being traumatized. As we get older, we start to feel like some type of maybe resentment or whatever the emotion may be, and we start to develop conflict with family members. And it becomes really, really tough especially the holidays. During another part of the year, perhaps it might be a little bit easier because you're getting space.

Alyssa Scolari [06:49]:

But again, going back to this expectation that we're all supposed to be together for the holidays, it puts a lot of pressure on trauma survivors. This holiday season for me is really monumental in my recovery because it's the first holiday season where I'm spending it with who I want to spend it with and not with who I feel like I have to spend it with. Oftentimes, these holidays can be so stressful because of who we feel like we have to see or who we feel like we have to buy gifts for when we really don't want to.

Alyssa Scolari [07:38]:

And if you are out there and if you are somebody who feels like you have to buy a gift for somebody who you don't want to buy a gift for, or if you can't afford to buy gifts, or if you feel like you have to show up to this family event knowing that these people harmed you, or that somebody there is triggering you, or that one of your abusers is there, I want to encourage you, if you feel like it's the right time for you, I want to encourage you to start figuring out how you can set some boundaries in order to protect yourself.

Alyssa Scolari [08:20]:

There's a couple different ways you can go about navigating family during the holidays when there's lots of parties, lots of gatherings, lots of expectations around gift giving. One thing I recommend when it comes to gift giving is thinking ahead of time about who you would like to buy gifts for. For me, there was always this big expectation that everybody in our family got a gift. So at one point, I was buying gifts for like 10, 11 different people in my family for Christmas.

Alyssa Scolari [08:56]:

And honestly, that adds up. Hundreds, if not nearly a thousand dollars of gift giving, and then I haven't bought anything that... And that also includes like pets for big pet people. Pet toys are expensive too. I think one Christmas like a couple years ago, I just kind of said to my mom, I was like, "Can we just not do gifts? Or do a Pollyanna or something like that?" My mom was not a fan of the idea before, during, or after, because my mom really liked the idea having like all the Christmas presents around the tree and everybody's sitting around opening up gifts.

Alyssa Scolari [09:40]:

But financially, it is just so taxing. I also think it just adds to this mindset that the holiday is simply about what you can buy and what you can afford to buy. I would strongly recommend if you're struggling with like, "Oh, how am I going to get gifts for people that I don't really even want to get gifts for," I think you should sit down and make a list. Who do you actually want to buy gifts for? And it might be uncomfortable to not buy somebody a gift when you feel obligated to.

Alyssa Scolari [10:20]:

The first year that I didn't buy my brother a gift... I mean, granted, I'm almost 30 and he's nine years older than me. It was time for us to stop buying each other gifts. But I knew that I had to be the one to pull the trigger because I knew that my brother wasn't really going to say anything. I just felt like this was not a stressor that I needed. That first holiday was really uncomfortable, but I want you all to remember this, you do not owe anybody any explanations.

Alyssa Scolari [10:59]:

You truly don't. And if you want to give an explanation, all you have to do is say, "Hey, I am respectfully requesting that we not do gifts this year." And that in itself is a boundary that you are setting. And again, there could be several different reasons for why you're setting this boundary. It could simply be you are in a financial bind, or it could be that you don't feel like you want to exchange presents with this person because this person may trigger you.

Alyssa Scolari [11:31]:

You may not like this person, and it's just not necessary. You do not need to do things for the holidays to save face. And a lot of times for trauma survivors in particular, we are such people pleasers that we end up doing a lot to save face. So it's really important that we don't say face. I think that I really like the technique of reaching out to that person and just saying like, "I'm respectfully asking that we don't do gifts this year," because then that eliminates any possibility for uncertainty, for expectation.

Alyssa Scolari [12:12]:

It's sort of like I told you we're not going to do this, so I'm not going to get you a gift. You're not going to get me a gift. I will see you when I see you at the holidays. Maybe. Maybe not. We'll talk. And that will be that. I do like that idea of communicating beforehand, and I strong really recommend it, especially when it comes to the gifts, because it can just be so stressful. And then you end up just spending all of your money on people who trigger you and it can really set you back.

Alyssa Scolari [12:49]:

I mean, it does more harm because it brings you right back to... If you are a child abuse survivor, it can bring you right back to your childhood where you are having to please your abuser or do things for your abuser. That in itself can be very triggering. I hope that that piece helps with the gifts. I know it might kind of seem like how our trauma and gift giving are related, but they absolutely are, especially when so many of us have been trained to be people pleasers and to give and give and give, even though we might not be able to give, right?

Alyssa Scolari [13:33]:

We have been trained to give even at our own expense. That is why this piece is really important. I strongly encourage you to really reflect on who is getting gifts, can I do gifts this year, and remember that you don't owe anyone anything. I know this is all easier said than done. I promise you, because I have been there. Been there. I have done that. I am going through that as we speak, not necessarily with the gifts, but more so navigating who I want to spend time with and what I want the holidays to look like.

Alyssa Scolari [14:25]:

Let's shift gears for a minute into that area. Now, if you are somebody who has gone no contact with your family and you don't speak to them at all, you don't necessarily have the issue of, am I going to see my family on the holidays? The issue you might be struggling with is, am I going to be alone? Who will I spend the days with? How am I going to deal with any potential gifts that may come in the mail from family members I've tried to go no contact with?

Alyssa Scolari [15:11]:

How am I going to deal with any text messages or calls from family members? Because a lot of times when we go no contact with family, family might not necessarily respect that, especially on a holiday. You might not hear from your family member in a year, but when you wake up on Christmas morning, you might have a text from a family member that you don't want to speak to. But here you are with a text in your phone on Christmas morning because that family member's like, "Oh, it's the holidays and the holidays don't count."

Alyssa Scolari [15:49]:

If you are somebody who's gone no contact with your family, I encourage you to take this time and to think about all the ways in which you can protect yourself when the holidays arrive. For example, what do you need to do on your phone? Are there certain people you need to block, put on do not disturb? You don't necessarily have to block if you don't want other people to know that they're blocked, but you can put them on do not disturb. You can decide that you're not going to look at your phone for the day.

Alyssa Scolari [16:30]:

You can tell people ahead of time that you won't be taking any calls that day, or you won't be responding to any messages that day, because I know how overwhelming it can be to have no contact with your family for a year, but then on a holiday... It's kind of like with birthdays, right? I have certain family members who I have gone no contact with and I will not be seeing for the holidays. And more than likely, I will not be seeing them ever again.

Alyssa Scolari [17:07]:

But I'm dreading... Like my birthday is coming up on January 6th. Actually I had to think for a minute about when my birthday was. That's pretty bad. My birthday is coming up and these people, I haven't heard from them in a year, honestly. I know that I'll get a text on my birthday, and I don't want a text. I don't want to hear from them, so I'm already thinking of ways that I can prepare myself by I'm considering perhaps blocking the phone number.

Alyssa Scolari [17:42]:

I'm considering just putting my phone down for the entire day of my birthday and just spending the day with people I want to spend it with. I might put these people on do not disturb. I'm not sure, but these are some options that I'm juggling, and I'm kind of going through in my head to decide what is going to be right for me. The same can go for you when it comes to your birthday and when it comes to the holidays. Start planning these things ahead of time, so that the day of you feel more prepared.

Alyssa Scolari [18:24]:

If you're worried you're going to get packages from people, then I actually strongly recommend that you go with a friend to go pick up your mail. Or if a package comes, I suggest that you have a trusted friend, a friend, a partner, whoever is safe in your life, have them help you. Now is the time to lean on other people, but people who are safe. People who can understand you.

Alyssa Scolari [19:00]:

If you're worried about packages, don't do this alone, because I know how triggering it can be to, again, not hear from somebody, be no contact, and then all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, here's a package at my door." It ruins your entire day. It's so upsetting. Now, if you're somebody who has not gone no contact with your family and you plan on spending the holidays with your family, again, there are some things that you can do to prepare.

Alyssa Scolari [19:35]:

I think it's really important that you bring people into your holiday season who are safe, whatever that may look like. If you spend Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day with your family, consider breaking it up a little bit. Who do you want to spend the holidays with this year? Do you have certain friends that are more like family members that you want to spend the holiday with? Talk to them. See what their plans are and break it up.

Alyssa Scolari [20:17]:

If you know you have to spend Christmas day with your family and you know it's going to be triggering, have a plan in place where maybe Christmas Eve is not with your family, but is with your friends. I really, really love the saying family by choice, because that's what I think friends are. And I am so blessed to have so many members of... Well, family members, but they're family by choice. I have so many beautiful people in my life.

Alyssa Scolari [20:55]:

And this year for the first time I am spending one of the holidays with our family by choice and not our family. David and I both decided that together. We will see our families. We're doing a little bit of everything, right? We are going to see our families. We're going to see both sides of our families, because both sides of our families have family members that we want to see. I do want to see my mom on Christmas. I do want to see my mom on whatever holiday I see her.

Alyssa Scolari [21:33]:

I do want to see her, but there are other people that I have zero desire to see. People who have not reached out, have not said a word to me. I moved to a new state several months ago. I've been going through so much and I have not heard a peep from these people. And I have zero desire to spend it with them. And for a million other reasons, I have zero desire. It's not just because of that. But as a result, we made the decision that we're going to do what we want to do for the holidays.

Alyssa Scolari [22:16]:

We're not going to do what we feel obligated to do, because what will happen is exactly what happened last year, which is we ended up going to a place where we didn't want to go and we left at the end of the night. And before I even made it to the car, I was sobbing hysterically because of how triggered and upset I was. I don't want to do that because this is my holiday too. Just like it's your holiday.

Alyssa Scolari [22:52]:

Start figuring out who's safe in your life, who you want to spend time with, and make those plans, even if you have to like spend the holidays with your family, and then you start having your own holiday, right? Some people do a... oh, what's it called? Oh, a Friendsgiving. Some people do a Friendsgiving. Do a Friendsgiving. Do something that is going to remind you of the love you have in your life, especially if you're having to do something that reminds you of the abuse you endured.

Alyssa Scolari [23:35]:

That is so important. Do not subject yourself to a triggering situation without first wrapping yourself up in love and support, right? You would not go bungee jumping without a bungee cord. It's the same thing here. Do not go bungee jumping without a bungee cord. Do not spend time with triggering people unless you are going to wrap yourself in love and safety and support in other ways. I hope that that makes sense, and I hope that that helps. And also please know that you're not alone.

Alyssa Scolari [24:14]:

Know you are absolutely not alone and know that you do not have to go to something just because it seems like the right thing to do. Again, we have multiple invitations for the holidays this year, and we have not really decided on what all of our holidays are going to look like, but we do know what some of them are going to look like. We've decided that it's most important for us to wrap ourselves in safety and love and kindness and start new traditions. Because you, as the trauma survivor, are also the cycle breaker.

Alyssa Scolari [25:00]:

If your trauma is in your family, you are the cycle breaker. Break that cycle. And remember that no is a complete sentence. That is one of my favorite quotes of all time. No is a complete sentence. You are allowed to say no to people and not have to tell them why. It doesn't mean you're avoiding people. It doesn't mean it's a forever thing either, right? That's the other important thing to point out, is that just because you're not going to a holiday gathering this year doesn't mean you won't go next year.

Alyssa Scolari [25:48]:

It just means that this year it's going to be a no for you. And that's okay. Because when it comes to recovery, we can be up. We can be down. We can be good some years. Some years can be really rough. It can be hard to tell. So just know also that just because you don't do something one year doesn't mean you can never do it again.

Alyssa Scolari [26:14]:

Now, if you are somebody who feels like you can't say no to your family and to their invitations to spend time to together, I again want to say, I can't emphasize this enough, to make sure that you're supported, right? If you are going to a holiday, try not to go alone. Even if you have to physically be alone, try to have friends. And I recommend this to so many of like my adolescence and like the minors that I work with, who don't really have much of a choice on where they go for the holidays.

Alyssa Scolari [27:00]:

Try to have somebody that you can stay connected to at least on the phone. If you can't have somebody with you in person, have somebody on Instagram, via text message, Snapchat, whatever app. Stay connected. FaceTime them. Go into the bathroom and FaceTime. Take lots of bathroom breaks. I do that all of the time. When I am overwhelmed and overstimulated or triggered, I'll be in the bathroom. Find me in the bathroom. I'll just be like chilling on the toilet just like taking a breather, because I need to decompress.

Alyssa Scolari [27:39]:

Go FaceTime somebody in the bathroom. Do what you need to do to stay connected to safety. Because during this time of the year, the fact of the matter is that the suicide rates increase significantly. So much of it is because we are, A, sent into a viral over how we're going to afford Christmas gifts because this society has made it seem like all that matters is what we're buying other people. B, we feel lonely. We don't feel as fulfilled as these Hallmark Christmas movies make us feel like we should be, because life is not a Hallmark movie.

Alyssa Scolari [28:29]:

Life is full of triggers and trauma and trying to navigate difficult relationships and setting boundaries. You're not going to find any of that in a Hallmark movie. You're not going to find any of that in most Christmas movies. If you do find it, it's like, "Well, the problem was so easy," right? Like in these Hallmark movies, oh, you just needed to meet the love of your life and everything is perfect. Ugh, I'm rolling my eyes because I can't. I know this is very controversial, so don't come at me.

Alyssa Scolari [29:07]:

I know people love their Hallmark movies. I have a problem with them because I think that they send the message that you can only truly be happy and enjoy the holidays if you have found your soulmate and the love of your life. And I think that's crap. I mean, whatever. That's me just being really nitpicky, but I just feel like Hallmark movies are whatever. I digress. I could go on about it, but I won't. I won't.

Alyssa Scolari [29:43]:

For all of those reasons and many more, suicide rates are significantly increased during the holidays, which is why I am talking about this. It is important. I cannot stress it enough, start planning now if you have issues with family members. And don't be afraid to say no. In fact, if you want to say no to a holiday, you can... One thing that is really helpful for me if I'm going to say no to anybody, because saying no to somebody is still a little bit difficult for me, I will ask my husband to sit with me on the phone.

Alyssa Scolari [30:28]:

Because if he's next to me, I am more likely to do what I said I was going to do. If you have a hard time saying no to people and have a hard time declining an invitation, have somebody who can help hold you accountable. That's extremely helpful. And then have somebody who also can help manage the guilt that comes after with saying no. Because just because you're setting these boundaries doesn't mean it's going to be easy. It doesn't mean there's not going to be any guilt involved.

Alyssa Scolari [31:01]:

There's going to be a lot of guilt by nature. As abuse survivors, as people pleasers, we feel guilty when we say no to people. But remember, you are not responsible for somebody else's reaction. All you can do is what's best for you. You are not responsible for the reactions of others. Lean on one another. Lean on the safe people in your life. Make a plan now because the holidays will be here before you know it. I want you to be able to find the magic in your own way, on your own terms.

Alyssa Scolari [31:49]:

There is so much magic to be found in this time of year, and part of that magic can be found in setting boundaries with the people who trigger us. It is not easy, but it is paving the way to a safer, happier, and healthier life. I hope that this was helpful. I will be right there with it with you. I have a really hard time saying no. It is going to feel really weird for me this year to change things up on the holidays, but I'm doing it for myself, for my family, for my future.

Alyssa Scolari [32:32]:

I am getting really comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I am leaving no stone unturned this year when it comes to saying what I want and making the most out of it, because last year we were pretty much all stuck at home because of this pandemic. I will be damned if I'm going to miss out on the joy and magic of another holiday season because I am so busy trying to please other people. I love you all take extra good care of yourselves. I am holding you in the light, and I will be back next week. Enjoy.

Alyssa Scolari [33:14]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma, and on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

At some point during the therapy process, we have likely all had the thought "My therapist gets paid to care about me – they're not expressing genuine care or concern." On this week's episode, Alyssa is tackling that myth and is explaining the many reasons why this thought is untrue.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Light After Trauma Podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari, and I am happy to be here as always. Thank you all so much for your continued support. If you have not done so already, please head over to our Instagram, which the handle is Light After Trauma. It's the name of the podcast. That's it. Pretty simple. Head on over. We have been putting out some really good content and yeah, I've actually really loved getting DMs from you all and getting to chat with some of you all and hear the ways in which the podcast has resonated with you. So thank you for that and head on over and give us a follow if you haven't done so already.

Alyssa Scolari [01:10]:

I also want to encourage you if you haven't done so already to please go ahead and leave a review for the podcast. Reviews are so important in terms of helping the podcast to grow and to get sponsors and to be able to really just spread the awareness and this free content to more people in greater parts of the world, which is great because it's a way that everybody can have access to some type of mental health education.

Alyssa Scolari [01:45]:

And then lastly, before we dive into the topic of today's episode, I do want to remind you all of the Survived and Thrived stories segment that I have created. I've only put out two episodes so far. There are many episodes and they are made for all of you, the listeners. So they're really made for those of you who want to write in and share your story. You can send that email over to me at [email protected]. And if you want to find out more, you can go right over to my website at lightafter.com and you can check it out. There's a whole section there for Survive and Thrive stories. But basically if you are looking for a way to share part of your story, you can write it in and I will share it on a podcast episode and then I will give my own feedback as well. So don't forget about that. If you are interested, please head on over to the website or you can just send an email to [email protected].

Alyssa Scolari [02:55]:

And with that said, let's launch right into today's topic. So got another solo episode for you today. And we are talking about, this is one of my favorite topics. And I feel like I say that all the time, and I really probably need to stop saying that. But hey, I am clearly very passionate about this field. So today's topic is one that honestly I've struggled with myself and I am a therapist. So it's this age old question of does my therapist really care about me? And does my therapist really care about my problems? And does therapy really even matter because I'm just kind of going there and showing up once a week or once every other week or twice a week? In my case, twice a week. I go to therapy twice a week. It works for me. I love it. And it's a way for me to feel more supported.

Alyssa Scolari [03:59]:

But it's very tricky because I find that so many of my patients and even my friends and colleagues, and even myself fall into this way of thinking where we're like, oh, well I pay you to care about me as my therapist. So your care and concern isn't genuine because I'm literally paying you to care. This is something that I've also seen popping up on TikTok a lot. So I follow a lot of therapists on TikTok and I look at the comments section and in a lot of the comments section, so many people are like, yeah, no, my therapist doesn't actually care about me, and they're just getting paid. Or they're attacking the therapist who made the TikTok and they're saying, "Well, you don't actually care and it's not unconditional love. And it's not unconditional compassion because if I weren't paying you, then you wouldn't still care about me."

Alyssa Scolari [05:12]:

And I know I can definitely speak to this issue about therapy from both perspectives, as the client or the patient and as the therapist. I had a therapist once who, and of course this therapist, the relationship did not work out. And I will share everything that happened with this therapist at some point. I just can't at the moment, but stay tuned for that. So this therapist is somebody who I saw for several years, and it was all fine and dandy until I really started getting into like the nitty gritty of my trauma. And I started to have a lot of questions about whether or not this therapist really cared about me. And I would actually say that to her, which is important. If you feel that way about your therapist, it's important that you ask them that. And I also should preface this by saying that this podcast episode is not me speaking on behalf of all therapists because A, that wouldn't be fair. And B, I don't really know what's going on in the minds of other therapists.

Alyssa Scolari [06:42]:

I only know what's going on in my own heart. And I assume, or I know that there are other good therapists out there because I currently have a very good therapist. And I know that this therapist cares me because she cares about me and not because she's getting paid to care about me. So while I can't speak on behalf of all therapists, I am going to speak on behalf of myself. And I hope that me sharing this experience helps you with your relationship with your therapist, if you are having these types of thoughts and these types of questions.

Alyssa Scolari [07:23]:

So anyway, back to the therapist that I was seeing before, so I used to ask her all the time, "Well, what do you care? I pay you. I pay you. You don't care. And the minute I walk out this door, you forget. You forget everything. And then you don't really care until I have another check for you." And I laugh about it now because it was ridiculous. I mean, I actually said all these things to her. And my way of thinking, I was just so hurt and my defenses were up so high and she would say to me, "Okay, Alyssa, is that how you feel about your patients?" And I would hate that she would say that to me because the truth is no, that's not how I feel.

Alyssa Scolari [08:17]:

So, okay, let's break this down a little bit. So do therapists need and want and deserve to be paid? Yes. We went to school for this. We are experts in this subject and we deserve to get paid for our work. What we don't get paid for is to care as much as we do. And again, I'm not speaking for every single therapist. Okay. This is really about my experiences. I do not get paid to care as much as I do. So I look at my husband and I look at the job that he has. He works from 7:00 AM until 5. And he goes to meetings, and he answers emails and this, that, and a third. And I see that at the end of the day, when five o'clock comes around, he closes his computer and he is done. And I see that during the day, while he might be in a meeting, he is able to maybe fold some laundry. He works from home. So he might be folding some laundry while he's in a meeting and he's paying attention to the meeting and he's fully engaged in the meeting.

Alyssa Scolari [09:49]:

But he is doing something. He is doing another task. And again, not always. My husband is a phenomenal worker, one of the hardest workers that I know, but he does have that option if he wants to or if he can. He also has the option of just really taking a moment for himself and taking a break. And while he's on that break, he's not thinking about what is going on at work. Just like he's not thinking about what's going on at work, when he's done at 5:00 or 5.30 or 6:00 or whatever.

Alyssa Scolari [10:32]:

I don't do that. I and most therapists work all day, and this is not a complaint by the way, this is not a complaint. I love what I do, but I work all day. I may work about 8 hours, sometimes 10 hours, sometimes 12 hours but I will see clients back to back. And when I'm done, when I get in my car and I drive home, I don't shut it off. I choose not to shut it off. Could I probably shut it off? Yeah, but I don't want to. And I think this is one of the biggest issues that therapists are well, it's something that therapists are shamed for. So I even feel a little bit funny admitting this, because I know that a lot of therapists listen to this podcast, but I don't think I'm alone in this.

Alyssa Scolari [11:33]:

So I know that when we go to school, we are trained to shut it off. You have to shut it off. You have to find a way to let it go and you get back into your car. And I really feel like that's a crock of shit. And don't get me wrong. That advice is useful to an extent. It's never good to be obsessed about a client's problem or a certain case that you have or an issue, but part of what makes us so good at our jobs is our ability to care for people unconditionally. So, no, I do not shut it off the second that somebody leaves my office. I get into my car and I'm driving home and I'm thinking about interactions. I'm thinking about things that I said, things that that person said, how I felt the session went, if there were things that I could have done better, if there were questions I forgot to ask or things I forgot to touch on, if the people that I saw today are safe. All of these things are going through my head, just in the car ride home.

Alyssa Scolari [12:40]:

And it's not just in the car ride home. It's the holidays, and it's the weekends, and it's ... Take the holidays for example. My husband is not attending the holidays wondering if his coworkers are going to be okay. When it's the holidays for me, I spend my time in ... I enjoy every second of the holidays, but I spend my time feeling sorrow and feeling sad and feeling concerned for my clients who don't have family to spend the holidays with, or for the children that I see that are stuck in toxic homes that I know the holidays will be miserable for. I think about all of that. I could be vacuuming my house and in my head, I'm thinking about what I can do to help this one client who is really stuck with this particular issue. It's very, very different when you work individually with people trying to help empower them to be their own best advocate, their own problem solver and to reach all of their dreams and goals.

Alyssa Scolari [14:08]:

Now, it's a little bit difficult to say this because in grad school, what I would be told by one of my professors is, well, that's a sign that you're in too deep. That's a sign that you got too close. That's a sign that you don't have good boundaries. You got too close, you cared too much. And again, I say that is absolute bullshit. I mean, okay, it's 98% bullshit because there is a such thing as getting too close. But the majority of the time, we know the most intimate details on somebody's life. And for grad schools to make it seem as though we can just turn it off really makes us seem like we should be more robotic than we really are. I'm the not collecting my paycheck and then going on my holidays and my vacations and my weekends, and never thinking about the people that I work with. Absolutely not. And I don't think that I'm alone in that. I think that there are a lot of therapists who feel the same way. We carry our clients with us in our hearts, in our heads. We wish them well all the time.

Alyssa Scolari [15:43]:

I know other therapists are like that because I've heard it firsthand. And I do not think that this is a weakness, even though being in grad school, a lot of professors will try to say that that is a red flag. I just don't think that it is. I think it's part of what makes me and other therapists so good at their jobs. It's so healing when I sit down with my therapist and she says, "I was really thinking about what you said last session." That statement alone. "I was really thinking about what you said," is so healing for me, as I know it is for so many other trauma survivors, because what that means is that my therapist cares, my therapist heard me, my therapist saw me and my therapist thought that what I said was important enough that she carries it in her head and wanted to bring it up again. She remembered.

Alyssa Scolari [16:54]:

This isn't something where I enter into this alternate universe and my therapist cares about me for 60 minutes. And then the rest of the week, she doesn't know who I am. It's like, oh, we have a relationship. And that's what therapy is. Therapy is not the 60 minutes or 45 minutes a week. It is a relationship that you have with somebody. And when we have a relationship, it does become nearly impossible to just completely shut it off as we are trained to do in school. The therapeutic relationship is what makes therapy so successful. So when you, or when I start to have those thoughts of like, well, what if my therapist just like doesn't care? Or like, my therapist only gets paid to care. If there's no money involved, then my therapist doesn't care. That is so untrue, in so many cases. I won't say all because I have had quite a few therapists who I know barely remembered my name from session to session.

Alyssa Scolari [18:09]:

There are bad therapists out there just like there are bad people in every profession out there. I mean, there's just bad people in the world in general, but when it comes to therapy, there's so much that we do that you might not be aware of that we don't or you don't pay us for. We seek out supervision, individual supervision, group supervision, we take courses to be able to become better trained in certain areas. We do tons of research. We do tons of reflecting. I reflect both inwards and outwards, about what am I bringing to the table? How am I helping this person? So much of that happens outside of the 60 minutes. And so much of that is stuff that we don't get paid for.

Alyssa Scolari [19:12]:

My husband, going back to this, he works for 10 hours, I think his work day is, and when he is done, he's done. But when I'm "off the clock," I'm not done. And I'm really good at taking care of myself. And I certainly have moments where I do shut things off, but my ability to continue to reflect on my patients' problems and be able to brainstorm different ways to help them, again, is part of what makes me good at my job. And part of what makes therapy successful.

Alyssa Scolari [19:59]:

Now, I think there's another piece to this whole does my therapist really care or are they just there collecting a paycheck? And I think that this is very, very common in a lot of trauma survivors, because we are not used to unconditional love and empathy and concern. We're not used to that. We are used to relationships that are very conditional. We are used to love and care that is contingent upon something or someone. We're so new to the world of unconditional relationships, that it makes more sense to us. And in fact, I'm going to take it one step further and say even that it's safer for us to just think that this therapist is just getting paid to care. It's actually a little bit safer because it's familiar. We're so used to having to you give something in order to get love as trauma survivors. That is our norm.

Alyssa Scolari [21:15]:

So I think that when we find ourselves asking this question with our therapist, I think part of it is related to the trauma. Part of it is related to the abandonment we've had in relationships before. Part of it is related to well, if I just tell myself that my therapist is only in this for money, then that sort of keeps this wall up between my therapist and I. So then my therapist can't fully see me, I can't fully be in this relationship because I already know, or I've already assumed that it's conditional. I've already assumed that.

Alyssa Scolari [21:58]:

So part of it for sure is a defense mechanism. It's certainly a defense mechanism that I had. And it certainly is something that pops back up for me from time to time when I'm triggered or if things are going too well with my therapist, I start to get that feeling of like, oh no, wait, she's kind of only in this for the money Alyssa. So calm down, don't get too excited that you have a healthy relationship with somebody. And that's just simply not true. I know my therapist cares about me and I know the unconditional love and concern and care that I have for my clients, it's something I can't describe. I feel honored every day to be able to walk this journey next to my clients. And nothing brings me greater joy than watching them succeed and watching them move through these milestones. And I love that when I get excited, they roll their eyes at me because they think that I'm off my rocker, which I totally am, but I don't care.

Alyssa Scolari [23:15]:

It is a beautiful thing, and I do not take one single relationship that I have with my clients for granted. And I think it's safe to say that if you are in a safe and healthy relationship with your therapist, they very much value you. I value, admire and respect the people that I work with. Yes, I do deserve to get paid for my job, for my expertise, but that does not change the fact that I care. And if my clients were having some sort of financial hardship or struggle, I work with them, I have, and I will continue to do so because it's more than the money for me. And it is more than the money for most therapists.

Alyssa Scolari [24:15]:

I am so lucky because I have so many beautiful relationships from my job. With that, means that I can't always turn it off in the same way that David can shut his computer down at the end of the day and not give work a second thought until the next day. I can't always do that, but that's okay because what I get out of it is so worth it. There are days when it's hard, for sure. When I unexpectedly have to terminate with clients or when a relationship doesn't work out with a client and they need to be referred out, it is hard for me. That happened recently where I ended up having to terminate with a client who I had been seeing for quite some time and knew very, very well and it was devastating. I was very upset and it's okay for me to be upset. I was upset because that person was more than a paycheck to me. So much more than a paycheck.

Alyssa Scolari [25:28]:

So it is difficult, but it is beautiful and it is about so much more than just money. And if you find yourself wondering if your therapist really cares about you, I think you should talk to them about that. I really do because that conversation in itself can be so healing. But I think you should also remember that there are other things that go into therapy than just the one hour a week. And I also think you should remember and ask yourself if some of those feelings are about your own defenses.

Alyssa Scolari [26:09]:

So I hope that this helped. This is just a really important topic because I know so many of us feel this way. So I really hope it was helpful. Feel free to let me know your thoughts. Swing by on Instagram. Again, that's Light After Trauma and yeah, I hope, hope everybody has a wonderful week and a great start to their November and I will see you all next week. I am holding you in the light. Take care.

Alyssa Scolari [26:39]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support. [singing]

On this week's episode, Alyssa sits down with Julie Duffy Dillon, a weight inclusive Registered Dietitian, to talk about PCOS. Tune in for a discussion on how PCOS has become enmeshed in diet culture, anti-fat bias, and why this hormonal disorder may be linked to trauma. You might be surprised to learn that there is more to PCOS than what mainstream culture has led us to believe.

Julie's website

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome back to another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari. And I am super excited about today's guest. I was on Julie's podcast, the Love Food Podcast, about a month or two ago and that was an awesome episode. It was truly one of my favorite podcasts to do. Her podcast is phenomenal, so I highly recommend it. If you want to hear the episode, head over to my website, which is a lightaftertrauma.com. And you can check that out in guest appearances. That was a really fun episode.

And Julie and I really connected, and she is an amazing human being. So she is on my podcast today to talk about all of the good things and really talk about something that couldn't be more perfect timing, especially given a lot of the health issues that I'm having in my life right now. So let me give a formal introduction. So after sobbing in her boss's office, Julie Duffy Dillon, a registered dietitian and PCOS expert, never taught another diet. It was then that she appreciated the harm of the anti-fat bias and could not unsee it.

She now helps people with PCOS burn their diet books, regain the energy to live their life, and reclaim their power. Together, we will change PCOS health and care. So, for all of these reasons, obviously, from her bio, you can already tell the reasons why I have connected so well with Julie. So let's welcome her. Hi, Julie.

Julie Duffy Dillon [02:27]:

Hey, Alyssa. Thank you for inviting me on your show. I am so glad to be here, such an honor. Excited to talk.

Alyssa Scolari [02:36]:

I am nothing short of stoked. I was just telling the listeners that I was on your incredible podcast, the Love Food Podcast. And I mean, we just connected, right? We just connected right away.

Julie Duffy Dillon [02:51]:

Yes, totally.

Alyssa Scolari [02:52]:

And there are certain people that you meet in the podcasting world and you just hit it off right away. And we met in a rather unconventional way, because I showed up to Julie's podcast completely unprepared.

Julie Duffy Dillon [03:09]:

You're okay. It's okay.

Alyssa Scolari [03:12]:

So not my best first impression. But Julie is just a powerhouse in this field. So I am really honored to have you here. And so, we're talking about PCOS, which I just want to make sure, that stands for polycystic ovarian syndrome. Is that correct?

Julie Duffy Dillon [03:37]:

That is correct.

Alyssa Scolari [03:38]:

Alright. Alright. So can you give a little bit of a rundown on what that entails? I guess maybe what culture and diet culture will tell you that it is and society will tell you it is, versus what it really is. Because a lot of this is tied into diet culture and fat phobia and fat bias. Would you be able to give us a rundown of that?

Julie Duffy Dillon [04:10]:

Yes, I'm almost picturing an Instagram graphic that has two sides like, what society says PCOS is, with like a pie chart and ...

Alyssa Scolari [04:17]:

Versus what it actually is.

Julie Duffy Dillon [04:18]:

I'm like, oh, maybe I'll make that after in Canva.

Alyssa Scolari [04:20]:

Yeah, some content for you.

Julie Duffy Dillon [04:22]:

I spend a little too much time in Canva, so much fun in there, but ...

Alyssa Scolari [04:25]:

Canva is the best.

Julie Duffy Dillon [04:27]:

It is. What people are told when they're diagnosed with PCOS, what people assume PCOS is, diagnosis that has to do with reproduction, that has caused by a person's behavior, that a person has gained weight or eaten the wrong things and has caused these cysts on their ovaries and going to cause fertility issues. And society believes, and people who are diagnosed with PCOS are told like, take birth control so then you will then have a cycle. And when you want to have children, not if, when you want to have children ...

Alyssa Scolari [05:11]:

Yeah, there's never an if, right? Women aren't allowed ...

Julie Duffy Dillon [05:14]:

Yeah, because ...

Alyssa Scolari [05:14]:

... the choice, God forbid, we have a choice.

Julie Duffy Dillon [05:16]:

No, because that's what your point for, right?

Alyssa Scolari [05:20]:

Yeah, of course.

Julie Duffy Dillon [05:21]:

The misogyny is like, it's just obscene in PCOS, but anyway.

Alyssa Scolari [05:26]:

Suck it in.

Julie Duffy Dillon [05:28]:

So like a person is given, here's birth control, come back when you are trying to get pregnant and lose weight. So it's a diagnosis that people are told either directly or directly that they caused and that they have control over to get rid of. And those are all totally false. Totally false. And even the name is incorrect. There are no cysts involved in PCOS.

Alyssa Scolari [05:54]:

Oh.

Julie Duffy Dillon [05:56]:

I know. It's like, wait, what the hell?

Alyssa Scolari [05:57]:

What the hell.

Julie Duffy Dillon [06:01]:

So, can we give the actual what we know so far scientifically what PCOSOs is, because I can't say all that crap and not put what we actually know?

Alyssa Scolari [06:10]:

Yeah, absolutely. What do we know? Because I don't know anything. I'm excited to learn.

Julie Duffy Dillon [06:16]:

Well, good. I'm glad you're excited because this is something I love talking about. So ...

Alyssa Scolari [06:20]:

Yeah, let me get my glittery gel pen and take notes.

Julie Duffy Dillon [06:23]:

I'm so glad you found the pen. PCOS, what we know about it is that's an endocrine disorder that starts in the brain, not the ovaries. And the ovaries are basically an organ that gets affected by this endocrine disorder. And this endocrine disorder results in this hormonal imbalance that makes us set of symptoms. And it's also a diagnosis of exclusion. So in order for someone to get diagnosed with it, they have to exclude all these other things.

And it's a quite ambiguous question mark because it's relying on, again, this set of symptoms, instead of like, at this point, a blood test to find out yes or no. If you go in with a sore throat, you get a strep test. Oh, yeah, you have strep throat. There's lots of conditions where we can find out, for sure. And with PCOS, there is no exact test currently there are being. There's research right now on certain labs to potentially be used to help diagnose PCOS. But what we know about PCOS is that it is not something that person causes. It is a condition that is passed down through families.

It's not something that someone causes. They didn't gain too much weight. They didn't eat the wrong thing. It's not someone's fault. And because it's something that's passed down through families and a person didn't cause it through weight gain, pushing weight loss and dieting and losing weight is not going to cure it either. And it's unfortunately a condition that, especially on Instagram, it has this set of false truths that like, oh, I could cure it if I just eat the right thing. And unfortunately, it is a chronic condition. We don't have a cure for it.

So it's a lifelong experience. And so, learning ways to live with it and even if someone "ate perfectly" or did all the things that we know to do to help manage the symptoms with PCOS, it's still going to get worse, just because it is a chronic condition. That's just a part of chronic conditions and diseases. One last thing is I want to mention because I said like, hey, there's not even any cysts involved with PCOS, which I think is a great trivial pursuit question, if they declared it, so polycystic ovarian syndrome.

The reason why that was picked as a name is because when they ... It was like I think over almost 100 years ago, when on ultrasound, they were able to see these string of pearls on the ovaries and for people who had this set of symptoms, and they called them cysts at the time. But now what researchers and clinicians have been able to determine is that these are actually just immature follicles and not cysts, and so that's really important because people with ovaries will often get cysts and ruptured cysts and things like that, really painful. I've had them myself. I don't have PCOS. I should have mentioned that. But that's not something that is with PCOS, even though it's in the name. So it's confusing, right?

Alyssa Scolari [09:42]:

Yeah. Now, what are some things that show up in your everyday life that would cause someone to even be like, oh, maybe I should go get tested for this?

Julie Duffy Dillon [09:57]:

That's a great question. So, one way to capture that for you, the listener, is that, currently, there are three different criteria that can be used to help diagnose PCOS. And a person needs two out of the three criteria. So I'll share with you those things. And then there's also some hints, but they're not part of the diagnostic criteria. The three parts of the diagnostic criteria are either irregular or no periods. So if you have ovaries and you're supposed to be menstruating and you're not menstruating or they're super irregular, that could be one sign of PCOS.

The other is some signs of high androgens. So androgens are testosterone, or another one called DHEA. Those are hormones that can end up being higher in people with PCOS. And everybody with ovaries and/or uterus, it's going to have testosterone and other androgens. But people with PCOS oftentimes will have more androgens, and this will cause some symptoms like excess facial hair on the ... What's that? Excess facial hair on the face, yes. Excess facial hair, androgenic alopecia, which is the losing hair on the head. It also can cause really painful acne.

Sometimes it's called cystic acne that can almost look like boils and it can be on the back or the chest. And so, that's another sign of higher androgens. And sometimes doctors will test to someone's blood to see if they have high testosterone or DHEA. But if you have lots of extra facial hair or hair loss in your head or these really painful acne, that sometimes is all the doctor needs. You don't even need to worry about spending the extra amount of money on lab work if you don't want to. Some doctors, that's like the clinical observation is enough.

So then the last of the three is, if you get an ultrasound and they see those "cysts" or the multiple image of follicles on the ovaries. And remember, you only need two out of the three of those. So someone could have PCOS and not even have those multiple follicles. And for a lot of people, what happens is that they will have really heavy and really irregular periods. This is like the hints that you may have PCOS and also experiences with changes in mood, especially as you started menstruating or the time of when you thought you would start menstruating the first time.

A mood disorder oftentimes is the first sign and symptom of PCOS when people look back. And again, it's because PCOS is an endocrine disorder that starts in the brain, in the hypothalamus. And, Alyssa, I know you know the hypothalamus more than me as a therapist. That's where all the mood juices, right?

Alyssa Scolari [13:02]:

I love that you call it that, the mood juice.

Julie Duffy Dillon [13:04]:

I don't know. I don't think I've ever called it before. And now I'm frightened that I just did.

Alyssa Scolari [13:08]:

Oh my god, that was amazing. I will forever be using that, that's the mood juice.

Julie Duffy Dillon [13:13]:

It's all yours. But anyway, so that's one thing. And then there's also, because of the hormonal imbalance, this is not only to be diagnosed with PCOS. But for about 75% to 95% of people with PCOS, they also have high circulating insulin. And so, when someone has really high insulin levels, they will feel really tired and not sleep well, which is like, I'm so tired, but I can't sleep, that like exhaustion that comes with that. And then also, and this is where as a dietitian, I found myself a lot, these really intense carb cravings.

And I was just talking to some people within my course community yesterday about these cravings, and one person was like, "The word craving, that just doesn't describe it well enough because craving just sounds too subtle. It was like every part of my body needed these carbs, like I was going to die without them." And I've often used the word primal, and I'm appreciating, especially because I don't have PCOS, I haven't forgot a way to capture yet.

But if you have this just total pull to eat carbohydrates and maybe you have called yourself a food addict before or binge eat and feel like maybe you've used the phrase like I feel out of control with food and you also identify with some of the things I've said, you may have PCOS. That's a really common presentation, especially that I would see as a dietitian.

Alyssa Scolari [14:51]:

Wow. Okay. So this is a lot for my brain. This is like ...

Julie Duffy Dillon [14:57]:

I know. I dumped a lot.

Alyssa Scolari [14:59]:

Well, it's amazing because it actively is like, oh, this is what this actually is, versus like this is what society has made me think that this is. And I just wish ... It makes me sad for the folks out there who are not informed because ... So, I'm sure this diagnosis is going underreported in so many people. One of the reasons being fat phobia and fat bias and people just assuming that we have control over our weight and all aspects of our body. Now, I guess, bring it back a little bit because you have mentioned that you don't have PCOS. So, how did you get into this career path? Because I do not question at all your passion for this topic and I'm wondering like, what drives your passion for this, for all things, dietitian related, PCOS related? Where does that come from?

Julie Duffy Dillon [16:09]:

It's something that I didn't set out to really specialize in. I've always been a bit of an oddball. An awkward dietician is a phrase I've used before. A lot of my colleagues who I love dearly are really like detail-oriented colleagues of mine because we're trying to be scientists, and I just never identified me like that. And I'm probably wired more like a therapist and I probably should have studied that to begin with, but I did it. And so, when I finished my training to be a dietitian and then I have a Master's in Counseling. Once I finished that, I started to work with eating disorders.

I loved food behavior and just really wanted to get into that. And any diagnosis that ... Any console that would come my way that had to do with any medical diagnosis, I would refer out. Because I was like, no, I just want to work in food behavior. But then people with PCOS had lots of eating disorders too. And so, I just kept having people with PCOS that were my clients. And I have these experiences of trying to just search and search and search for answers, like how do I help people with PCOS? People with PCOS deserve to feel like at home in their body too.

They deserve recovery. They deserve to be free from diet culture. They deserve food peace as well. And so, I had all these tools to help people, especially thin people with eating disorder recovery. But yet with PCOS, it just kept falling short. And I kept looking and looking outside of my area where I lived, and there was nothing. And this was in 2004, 2005. I mean, there was barely an internet. It was baby internet at this point. So, I finally found someone to take me under their wing.

And she was someone who wasn't, I guess you would say like 100% weight inclusive, but she was willing to not push dieting for PCOS. And so, she helped me just to learn some different tools. And what she always said, because I was always so grateful, her name was Monika Woolsey, and she died in 2017. But before she died, I remember telling her like, "I'm so grateful everything you taught me." And she's like, "Wait, yeah, but you took it and ran with it." But she helped me to learn a different foundation.

And so, I'm hoping by doing that work for years and years and honestly, sitting across from people in that space where I was just trying to experiment, I'm like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick, clients were also engaged in that process too of like, yeah, let's figure out what works. And so, I feel like a tremendous gratitude for clients who were willing to do that, who basically helped us gather this data of like, this is what helps a lot of people, this is what helped some people, and this is what helped a few without dieting.

And so, hopefully, we can pass the baton, and there are. There's so many more clinicians who are weight inclusive, helping people with PCOS. And that makes me feel ... I mean, I can feel my shoulders dropping off away from my ears even saying that. It makes me feel like such a sigh of relief because there was literally nothing before.

Alyssa Scolari [19:26]:

Nothing, nothing.

Julie Duffy Dillon [19:26]:

Nothing.

Alyssa Scolari [19:28]:

And it is, it is so heartwarming to see the changes. And the changes are so needed. In your experience, I guess, why is this a problem? Why is finding somebody who is weight inclusive so important when it comes to ... I mean, honestly, food, in general, but also particularly like getting this diagnosis?

Julie Duffy Dillon [20:01]:

So, from a perspective of someone who is trying to manage long term their PCOS, having someone on their side that is weight inclusive, there's so much to that.

Alyssa Scolari [20:15]:

I know. That's a loaded question.

Julie Duffy Dillon [20:18]:

Chevese Turner is a therapist out of Maryland who onetime said, I love that this quote, she said, she's like, "The medical community is just so married to the weight loss paradigm. They can't see outside of it." And that is something that I think a lot about for people with PCOS. When you are told that you need to be fixed, it's not getting you the tools that you need in order to help you to, again, feel at home in your body and to feel powerful enough to then look outside of yourself.

Because what I teach within my program, is that like, so much of PCOS management, and when I say management, I mean it's finding tools for you to live with this chronic condition. This is going to be lifelong. And here are some tools that we have. Let's sift through the things that are going to be helpful for you while also looking outside of yourself to realize that you're not the one that's broken, that this world, this diet culture world, rooted in White supremacy, that's what's broken.

And so, we need ... Here's this armor and let's bring together an army of people, so we can be stronger together to help change PCOS care. And that's the only way I can see moving forward, is this for us to all rally together, whether it's people with PCOS and also people like me who don't have it, but just help people with PCOS coming together to hopefully make it more normal. So when people are diagnosed, they're not just told like that, here's birth control, lose weight.

That people are told the truth of actually what this condition is, and also told that like especially that they didn't cause it and reminded of that over and over again. I worked with some people that are aligned with fat positive body liberation. That's been a part of their life for decades, and they'll say, "Julie, I still need to be reminded that I didn't cause my PCOS." That's how pervasive PCOS healthcare is with diet culture, how intertwined it is and how traumatic it is for them to just get their yearly appointment done with their endocrinologist or to seek reproductive medicine.

Again, I know that word trauma is a ... Excuse me, is a part of your podcast, but also used a lot these days. But it's something that I firmly believe in. People with PCOS period are experiencing so much trauma just seeking care, and that needs to change. And I think the only way that's going to change is for all this to come together to move the paradigm, like the one that Chevese was talking about.

Alyssa Scolari [23:19]:

Yes, absolutely. And you nailed it, the process itself of even getting treatment and getting help or even getting a diagnosis in the first place is in itself traumatic. Timing is such a fascinating thing to me because as we're having this conversation, I am less than 48 hours out from a doctor's appointment now. So I've had several doctor's appointments in the last couple of months. And I'm sure I've been keeping the listeners up to date and aware for the most part, so many of the listeners know.

So I have been having severe menstrual cramping, severe, severe, severe, and it has gotten worse every single month. And I have seen so many doctors that have thrown a mixture of Advil and the pill at me. And I have been told, even when I go for the period cramping, somehow I am always told that everything in my life would be better if I just lost weight and ...

Julie Duffy Dillon [24:35]:

Oh, that's such a bullshit.

Alyssa Scolari [24:37]:

Right. It is the biggest crock of shit I have ever heard in my life. But people who, myself included, even though I'm aware of this, it still didn't make it less traumatizing for me.

Julie Duffy Dillon [24:37]:

No, no.

Alyssa Scolari [24:54]:

To go to doctor after doctor and be told ... I went to an endocrinologist because I was also having issues with just rapid weight gain awhile back, and I was told, "Oh, well, you should try walking 20 minutes a day."

Julie Duffy Dillon [25:09]:

Shut up.

Alyssa Scolari [25:10]:

Yup. That is what this renowned ...

Julie Duffy Dillon [25:13]:

That's laughable. Oh my gosh.

Alyssa Scolari [25:15]:

... endocrinologist sent to me. And then I had a doctor's appointment several weeks ago and I went in and I was like, "Look, I'm at my wit's end here my period is coming every three weeks. I am having cramps so severely that I am vomiting and having these weird fluctuations in my weight. There is something going on that I believe is deeply rooted in my hormones, possible endometriosis. I need you to listen to me." And she said, "Well, your kidneys aren't going to like this, but you should load up on Advil the day before your period. That will probably help. And then also for everything else, have you ever considered prescription diet pills? I can refer you to our weight loss doctor."

Julie Duffy Dillon [26:05]:

Oh my gosh. Wow.

Alyssa Scolari [26:08]:

And I sobbed in that doctor's office because I was just written off as, I hear that you're in pain, but this is probably your fault because you're fat. And you won't lose weight or are telling me you can't lose weight, so we're going to put you on a pill. Because I think that as long as you're not fat, it'll solve your problems. Which is her projecting her own discomfort of my body onto me. So, this is just ...

Julie Duffy Dillon [26:46]:

That's so much. I'm so sorry, Alyssa. That's ...

Alyssa Scolari [26:48]:

Thank you. I mean, listen, I was really looking forward to talking to you about it because I knew you would feel like it was absolute bullshit and now I will ...

Julie Duffy Dillon [26:57]:

Yes, 100% bullshit.

Alyssa Scolari [26:58]:

Absolute bullshit. Now I will say this to the listeners, okay? Because not taking anyone else's shit has really paid off because I ended up making multiple doctor's appointments. And this past week, like I said, less than 48 hours ago, I met with a doctor who was not only deeply apologetic and frustrated for all everything I've been told, but finally explained to me exactly what endometriosis is and exactly what my next steps are in terms of surgery and being referred to a doctor who specializes in all of this. So, there are people out there who will listen. But sometimes it takes a lot of fighting to be able to find those people.

Julie Duffy Dillon [27:41]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And your experience getting dismissed by your doctor and also the assumptions that were made on your movement, that obviously you want to be smaller like, let me give you this medicine to make you small. Those are the assumptions that people with PCOS are experiencing every time they get healthcare, unless they're lucky enough to be able to connect with a weight inclusive provider. And I mean, there's very, very few. I have one hand raised, both the MDs that I know, not just near me, but total. And that's just not okay.

It's heartbreaking how that is just the norm. And also, there's something about ovaries and periods, and I think it's more normal now. But 10 years ago and earlier, people didn't talk about their periods. And so, so much of this was just something that people hidden shame about. And so, they just never talked about. Even though this is a really common condition, it's really common. So whenever people with PCOS get together and areas, it's really amazing to see how validating it can be to know that like, yeah, you're not the only one that's getting dismissed like this.

And also, it can be like infuriating. And a lot of us who are socialized as women, we can be like, what the hell do we do with all this anger? It is rocket fuel for a food peace. It's rocket fuel to come together to help us change PCOS care, so like, let's do it.

Alyssa Scolari [29:29]:

Exactly.

Julie Duffy Dillon [29:30]:

We need this anger in order to make the change that we need for people who haven't started this process yet.

Alyssa Scolari [29:39]:

Exactly, we need this anger. We need it and we need to be able to use this anger productively to get our needs met. Collectively, women as a whole, and I have found that that anger has really helped me. It's helped me in the work that I do with my clients, as I'm sure it's helped you in the work that you do with your clients. But it's also helped me in my doctor's appointments. Whereas I think, again, not to say that my experiences recently have been not traumatizing, but whereas I think I would have maybe come home and crawled into my little shame shell.

And I would have maybe turn to my eating disorder because of what that doctor said to me. Instead, I went home and got on the phone with four other doctors and refused to miss a meal because of what that doctor said to me.

Julie Duffy Dillon [30:36]:

Yeah, that's important. You're so right. Because so many people have said that like, if we're in recovery, for a lot of people, eating disorder recovery was something that they had been in for years and years, and then they were diagnosed with PCOS, and that was a trigger to relapse and immediate. Because that doctor is like, "Well, guess you now have to cut out carbs."

Alyssa Scolari [31:00]:

Ugh.

Julie Duffy Dillon [31:00]:

I know. I'm like, have you seen the thick medical record of eating disorder treatment? It doesn't matter, because that's where the anti-fat bias is like, well ...

Alyssa Scolari [31:00]:

Exactly.

Julie Duffy Dillon [31:13]:

... it's worth the risk, I think. And also because people are just like, well, we're not really sure what to do. So then it's something that is just thrown out there. But it's really unfortunate. So a lot of people are activated, then just start restricting, even a part of their brain "knows better," but so much of that is because the body responds. The body gets activated and it's just trying to survive, and survive the trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [31:41]:

Exactly. Exactly, exactly. Now, in your opinion, because I know there's no exact research on this, or at least not to my knowledge, but what are some theories ... Because I know that there are some, what are some theories about the link between perhaps trauma and PCOS? And not just in the sense that the process of getting diagnosed and the process of treating and managing or managing because there's no cure, but the process of managing that can be traumatic. But are there theories and potential links about the cause of PCOS? I mean, I know we know it's passed down through families, but is there any relation to trauma on the onset of PCOS?

Julie Duffy Dillon [32:29]:

Yeah, that is something that is so interesting to me. And we have evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence. And this is where I rely a lot on the latter, the practice-based evidence. But thinking about what has been researched already, it's been a while since I've gone on Google Scholar to really take a deep dive. But every year or so, I'll go and be like, so anybody published anything on this? But the thing that gets in the way with a lot of it is like for you and me, so we're talking about diet culture as a trauma.

And so much of PCOS research is like, hey, how is ... For example, and this is a stigmatizing word when I say it, so I just want to give that heads up, like sedentary lifestyle. How is that a predictor for PCOS? And so, maybe they'll weave trauma in that way. And so, I'm like, oh, what can I do with this research? It's loaded with fat bias. So how can this be helpful?

Alyssa Scolari [33:31]:

Exactly.

Julie Duffy Dillon [33:32]:

You already have to do a lot of sifting. But what I noticed or what I know about PCOS and physiology are two things to keep in mind. And if a researcher is out there that's like, I don't know, twiddling their thumbs and looking for some new research, hey, look into this. What we know [inaudible 00:33:48] ...

Alyssa Scolari [33:47]:

Please. Any researchers with idle hands, please.

Julie Duffy Dillon [33:52]:

Especially fat positive researchers.

Alyssa Scolari [33:52]:

Yes, exactly.

Julie Duffy Dillon [33:54]:

I know they're out there. But we know people with PCOS, like I said earlier, most will have high circulating insulin levels. And what we know about systemic oppression and trauma-related systemic oppression is it causes higher insulin levels as well. And so, that's really interesting to me. It could be the chicken or the egg thing. And this is where as a clinician versus a researcher, I'm more invested in where my clients are in the here and now. So thinking about systemic oppression like my clients who are living, experiencing racism right now, I know that's making their insulin levels higher now.

Alyssa Scolari [34:36]:

Exactly.

Julie Duffy Dillon [34:37]:

So like, how can we help remove racism so they will have less insulin levels? And then the other one is inflammation. And I should name too, inflammation and insulin are diet culture magnets. Diet culture loves those words.

Alyssa Scolari [34:54]:

Love it.

Julie Duffy Dillon [34:54]:

And I know it's out of the scope of the time of what we have today, but that's all bullshit too.

Alyssa Scolari [35:00]:

Ugh.

Julie Duffy Dillon [35:00]:

Because that's only short term research. But what we know with inflammation is in the long term, dieting, like chronic dieting, and the dieting can be consistently dieting for two years or it can be off and on dieting for two to five years, is something that has shown a causal link to more inflammation. And what that means is, basically, dieting has been shown to cause more inflammation. And why that's important is because we know that inflammation predicts disease or it has a link to more disease. And that's why everyone talks about inflammation as this "horrible thing," when in fact, really, my mind, I'm getting into the weeds here, but inflammation is something that ...

Alyssa Scolari [35:44]:

No, I love it.

Julie Duffy Dillon [35:45]:

Inflammation is something that we need in order to survive. Like if we get a cut on our finger and it's red and it's warm, that's inflammation healing the spot. And people with PCOS, because of the hormonal imbalance, there's this imbalance going on, so the body is having to do a lot more cleanup work. And so, there's just more of this inflammation. And it's just a sign that the body's having to work harder than somebody else. So whatever we can do to help that person not have to work as hard is going to help.

And again, what we know is systemic oppression, any of them, those are things that also are shown to cause inflammation. And that's where trauma can come into play as well. We know trauma. You probably have more depth in that area, but the things that I've read about trauma, how they interact with blood pressure, blood sugar, and insulin levels, and inflammation, it's similar. And so, I know less about how PCOS occurs or how it like, poof, becomes in a person's body. But it sure as hell makes it a lot worse to live with. And that's my practice-based evidence. And ...

Alyssa Scolari [37:00]:

I love that. I love what you said about practice-based evidence versus evidence-based practice.

Julie Duffy Dillon [37:07]:

Oh yeah. Well, in PCOS world, that's why I struggled for so long when I first started working with it, is there's so little research on PCOS. Why? Well, it's because it's for people with ovaries. Who's going to be spending research dollars on it? Well, now, there's more, but it's all with weight centric PCOS interventions. And so, I'm like, well, how much of that research am I going to use besides showing, oh yeah, thanks for the six-week long keto research on 26 people.

Alyssa Scolari [37:39]:

Ugh.

Julie Duffy Dillon [37:39]:

That really helps me.

Alyssa Scolari [37:40]:

Yeah. You're really changing the world with that.

Julie Duffy Dillon [37:45]:

Yeah, thanks for spending all that money on that, NIH.

Alyssa Scolari [37:50]:

Ugh, god. We just have so much more work to do. It's vicious cycle. Because it's like, what came first, the chicken or the egg? But we do know that there is a potential link. There can be a potential link.

Julie Duffy Dillon [38:07]:

Yeah. I think there's something to it. Especially I know, as therapists, y'all talk a lot about like intergenerational trauma. And as dieticians, we talk about epigenetics. And I think about how did slavery affect people experiencing PCOS.

Alyssa Scolari [38:25]:

Absolutely.

Julie Duffy Dillon [38:26]:

Yeah, just like that's just one example. How did different traumas that have been passed down through families, how does that affect people getting PCOS? I don't know the answers to these things, but I would imagine that that's a piece of the pie somehow.

Alyssa Scolari [38:41]:

Absolutely. I think it would be almost foolish for us to even deny that, even though we try to as a society. But it's like, all you need to do is take one read through Bessel van der Kolk's The Body Keeps the Score to know that trauma is stored in the body. And when there's no release, it tends to just get passed down and passed down and passed down.

Julie Duffy Dillon [39:08]:

Right, right. Yeah, for sure. So much, yes, so much.

Alyssa Scolari [39:16]:

So much. Okay, so I feel like I learned so, so much. I just ... Ugh.

Julie Duffy Dillon [39:21]:

Good.

Alyssa Scolari [39:21]:

I love conversations with Julie. They're the best.

Julie Duffy Dillon [39:26]:

And so was I. You always make me feel so good about myself.

Alyssa Scolari [39:29]:

I mean, well, it's so hard to find people who understand this, but also have a passion for it. And I love it. I love all of it. I love your passion for it. I love the work that you're doing. I love that you are fighting for people to have a voice, and all of that is so important. I've mentioned your podcast. So if people, if the listeners out there would like to find you, which I'm telling you all, you need to go check out Julie's podcast. I said it in your introduction, the Love Food podcast, it's so good. It is such a ...

Julie Duffy Dillon [40:11]:

Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [40:11]:

... wonderful and unique twist on podcasting. Ugh, it's great. It's great, people. It's great. You tell us, what are all the different ways people can find you, work with you, hear from you? I know you have lots of different irons in the fire, so to speak.

Julie Duffy Dillon [40:32]:

Well, yeah. I have less irons in the fire, I think, now than I used to . I'm taking some of those irons out because I'm like, y'all, I'm tired.

Alyssa Scolari [40:39]:

That's not a bad thing, wasn't it?

Julie Duffy Dillon [40:41]:

No. I think it's been good. But the best place for you, the listener, to find me is if you go to my website, juliedillonrd.com, I have a page. If you go to juliedillonrd.com/freebies, if you have PCOS, I have a PCOS roadmap, that's a really great place to start. And it's the top three things that I tell people if they're like, hey, where should I start if I'm thinking about moving away from diets with PCOS? Again, that's a great place to start and also to see like, hey, do I like how Julie talks about PCOS? It's a great way to get to know me.

But what you also will find on there are links to other free downloads I have. And you'll find my podcast. I have a PCOS course. I'm going to be actually launching a new program in the spring, so be on lookout for that. That should be super fun. I'm excited to get that out to the world. And I'm on Instagram. And I'm actually like turning down the dial on how much I'm on there. But if you are someone who loves me on Instagram, go to food peace dietitian. But mostly, if you want to connect by going and getting onto that freebie page, you'll automatically get entered into my email list and I will be emailing you every once in a while, and we can we can chat that way.

Alyssa Scolari [42:04]:

That is awesome. So I'm actually on the page right now. And also, Julie's website is just so beautiful.

Julie Duffy Dillon [42:12]:

Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [42:13]:

The colors are so peaceful. It's just beautiful.

Julie Duffy Dillon [42:19]:

Thanks.

Alyssa Scolari [42:19]:

So, to the listeners out there, I will link Julie's website right to the freebies and, as she said, there you can find everything, the podcast, all the freebies that she has. And then I will also put her Instagram handle in the show notes for today. Julie, thank you. I have been looking forward to this for quite some time, and I'm so grateful that you really just came into my life in the wild and unconventional way [inaudible 00:42:53].

Julie Duffy Dillon [42:54]:

Yes, and I'm so glad that you introduced yourself to me. I feel like this is a new friendship. So thank you so much for connecting with me, and I look forward to chatting again in the future.

Alyssa Scolari [43:05]:

Yes, thank you. Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com. Or you can also follow us on social media, on Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma. And on Twitter, it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks, so please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

This episode is for those moments when we find ourselves wondering if what we went through is "bad enough" to be considered trauma. Tune in for a deep exploration of what trauma is and what it isn't, as well as the differences between being triggered and being traumatized.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Oh, hey friends, what's up and welcome back to another episode of The Light After Trauma Podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari, and I'm happy to be here today. It has been a super difficult week, but I have made it through and I have a lot of things going on medically. So for the listeners out there, if you could please just send some healing vibes my way, I would very much appreciate that as I try to navigate what has been a very difficult process so far. And with that said, just on other housekeeping things, thank you all again, for those of you who connected with me on Instagram after the podcast two weeks ago. I know that during that episode, it was a solo episode. And I had asked a lot of you guys to follow me on Instagram, which my Instagram handle is Light After Trauma and, message me and kind of tell me if there's any topics that you are interested in hearing about on the podcast.

Alyssa Scolari [01:36]:

And a lot of you did, and I got you connect with a lot of you and meet some of you. And that was really fun. I love getting to hear from you all. And I love getting your feedback because this podcast is for all of you, just as much as it is for me and your healing is important to me. So if there are topics that you think that you might want to hear about on the podcast, please feel free to message me again. My Instagram is Light After Trauma, but also go check out my Instagram anyway, because we have really been ramping up the content and putting out some great tips and things for you all. And yeah, it's just been really fun to connect with you all on Instagram. So again, that handle is Light After Trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [02:26]:

And also if you can spare just a few seconds of your time, I would really appreciate a review on the podcast. I will leave it at that because I know I asked for that a couple of weeks ago. So if you are willing to do that, thank you so much. I appreciate it and appreciate you. And if not, that's okay as well. And today's episode, we are talking about feeling like what happened to us, isn't really defined as trauma or feeling like what happened to me, like I don't know if it was bad enough to be trauma. And I get quite a few people in my office and also have quite a few peers and colleagues and friends who feel that way as well. And I think it's a very important topic to talk about because we tend to feel very invalidated in our emotions. And there are some things that we can very much label, very clearly as trauma in this world.

Alyssa Scolari [03:33]:

For example, we can label sexual assault and rape as trauma. We can label child abuse as trauma. We can label fatal car accidents as trauma and a whole host of other things that in our society, we look at that and we go, oh, that's definitely trauma, that's traumatic. Being a victim of a violent crime, domestic violence, suicide, it's all very, very traumatic. But then I find that there's this other piece to trauma that a lot of people are missing and that doesn't really get talked about enough, which then causes people to think to themselves, well, do I have trauma? And well what happened to me wasn't that bad and other people have it worse. I know plenty of people who think to themselves and I myself was one of these people. People think to themselves, well, at least I wasn't this, or at least I wasn't that. And at least I wasn't sexually abused as a child. Now that, that must really be trauma. What I experienced, eh, it's not really that traumatic.

Alyssa Scolari [05:03]:

And I feel like this is a result of a couple of things. I think one, it's a result of just a general lack of understanding about what trauma is and what it can look like. But then I also think it's a result of a perhaps subconscious level of denial wherein, and I know this was the case for me when I call it trauma, when I sit here and I say out loud that I have been traumatized and I have endured trauma in my life, it doesn't really feel that good. It kind of ... Being able to say oh, well this wasn't trauma, this was hard, but this wasn't trauma, keeps me almost in a level of denial.

Alyssa Scolari [06:01]:

So it's almost a way of us like gaslighting ourselves and talking ourselves out of feeling the way that we feel about what happened to us and talking ourselves out of our human experiences. And that in itself can be a coping mechanism. If I tell myself that what happened to me or what I went through or what I didn't get in my life, and I'm going to circle back to that. If I tell myself those things, then I don't necessarily have to feel as bad. And I don't necessarily have to face all of the feelings or the intensity of the feelings. Therefore, it's easier for me to say other people have it worse, or this really wasn't trauma. It sort of gives us an out and a workaround for how we can avoid dealing with the heavy feelings. And here's the thing.

Alyssa Scolari [07:07]:

That works for a little while, but eventually it catches up to us. So I know that for me, when I was with one of my abusers and I was questioning. For a long time I was questioning whether or not it was actually rape. And I kept saying to my therapist at the time, "I don't think this was rape because I could have been more clear about it. I could have said no." In fact, I actually remember sitting in therapy one day and saying to her, "Well, what if I was the abuser? What if I'm the one who hurt him? What if I'm the one that manipulated him into having sex?" And I was so deep in this level of denial and I was so hung up on all of the things that I could have done or said to prevent what had happened.

Alyssa Scolari [08:12]:

Well, it couldn't have been rape because I did not scream, or kick, or cry, or try to fight for my life. And it wasn't rape because I stayed with him. And it wasn't rape because I thought that I wanted it at first. I said, yes at first. It was my fault. And again, these things aren't necessarily about just sexual assault. This can really be about any type of trauma. There are also lots of folks who find themselves thinking things like, well, my parents never hit me. So I don't really think it's fair to say that I was abused because there are children out there that really get beaten and raped. And I wasn't either of those things. And it becomes especially tricky. I think when we start thinking about, well, I had a lot of my needs met, for example, my parents had a lot of money. They bought me anything I needed. I never wanted for anything. I always had food on the table. Therefore, the emotional neglect couldn't have been trauma. It couldn't have been that bad.

Alyssa Scolari [09:34]:

And like I said before, that kind of works for a while, that like mindset and that mind frame and that way of thinking, and it helps keep the emotions at bay. But it doesn't help forever. Because what happens is when you start saying those things to yourself, you, like I said, deny yourself your true experience. And in doing so you also deny yourself the emotions that might go along with your experience. And this finds a way to somehow ruin your life in the future. Or I should say ruin parts of your life in the future. And a lot of this is subconscious.

Alyssa Scolari [10:23]:

So for example, if you're somebody who was in an emotionally abusive household, but let's say your parents were wealthy and you never wanted for anything. You might say to yourself, well, this wasn't trauma, but when you become older and you start looking for relationships yourself, what you tend to do is you tend to seek out partners who are just as emotionally, as abusive as the household that you grew up in, because you have never allowed yourself to come to terms with the fact that what you experienced was traumatic and was abusive. So when you continue to tell yourself on one level that nothing bad happened, but your body and your brain and your subconscious know on another level that it was bad, your body is forever seeking to get out of that cognitive dissonance that you have put yourself in.

Alyssa Scolari [11:27]:

And your body wants to do that by then recreating the childhood that you grew up in, where you were emotionally neglected or emotionally abused. You will recreate that over and over and over again in adulthood, in an attempt to either prove to yourself that it was okay, and there was nothing wrong with what happened to me as a child, or as a way to prove to yourself, oh, this wasn't okay. This is what happened to me when I was a kid. Or what my partner is saying to me right now is what my father used to say to me or what my mother used to say to me and it doesn't feel safe.

Alyssa Scolari [12:19]:

So it works in the long run to tell ourselves my trauma wasn't that bad, or it wasn't even trauma, but it catches up with us eventually. And that is a really, really hard thing to be able to sit with, this idea that what happened to you may have been in fact trauma, because then you would have to do something with that. And that can be really painful, but it's not nearly as painful as repeating the same patterns into adulthood and having difficult relationships or friendships that don't work out, partners that you don't end up with because you're spending your time trying to recreate your childhood. And again, I don't want to be very specific to childhood abuse here because this can also just run the gamut of all types of trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [13:25]:

I got into a car accident in October. Oh, it was October 12th, I believe, 2015. It was Columbus Day, which is now Indigenous Persons Day. Yes, I believe I said that right. But hurray for that. Goodbye Christopher Columbus. Get out of here. This land was never yours. I digress. Back then, it was Columbus Day and I got into a car accident and I was fine, I had some serious bruises and my car was totaled and it was a pretty bad accident. I have no idea how I made it out of that accident alive. There were three cars involved in total and somebody had run a red light and I was at the green light and I was just going through the intersection, minding my business and I got pretty much T-boned. So I don't know how I made it out with just a few bruises, but I did, and I could not get back into the car afterwards. I just couldn't. I wouldn't drive. I was shaking and I didn't really understand it at the time. I didn't.

Alyssa Scolari [14:37]:

All I knew is that my reaction was so strong and so intense. And I do remember my mom kind of being like, what is going on here? Like, I understand that it was scary, but you have to get back in the car and get on the road. And I was just like, no, I refused to drive. And when I would drive, I would have massive panic attacks. And I think that if you had asked me back then, if that was traumatizing, I would have been like, no, it really wasn't bad enough to be traumatizing because I lived, everybody else lived. Nobody was hurt. Nobody died. It was just a really bad car accident and things happen and it wasn't traumatizing.

Alyssa Scolari [15:31]:

So then I would get in my head about like why am I like this? Why am I having such a severe reaction to this? And that was five, six years ago. Yeah, because today is, the day that we're recording this, this is October 15th, 2021. So this was just around six years ago that this happened. And I just hadn't the faintest idea why I was reacting so strongly then, and now all these years later, when I look back on it, I realize that I was very traumatized by that. And I was traumatized by that for a very specific reason. And it was because not long before that car accident, I witnessed somebody be hit and killed or struck by a car and killed on the spot. And that was extremely traumatizing. And I never got help for that. I just stuffed those feelings down. And before that, I had had a history of my best friend's mom died in a car accident. One of my best friends in high school died by also getting hit by a vehicle.

Alyssa Scolari [16:54]:

And I just had a history of issues with cars, car accidents, anything, being on the road was extremely triggering. So I didn't really understand it back then because I didn't understand trauma to the depth that I understand it now, but that reaction that I was having wasn't just a result of that car accident. Even though if it was, that would be okay too. It wasn't just a result of the car accident. It was a result of all of the things, all of the traumas with cars that I had had in the past coming to the surface. And that is why I had such a strong reaction, but I didn't know it at the time.

Alyssa Scolari [17:42]:

So I just continued to invalidate myself and think that I was crazy. And I hate that word, but that is what I would tell myself. I do my best not to use that word anymore, even though I am a fan of ... Or not a fan, but I have a habit of saying things like, wow, that's crazy. I try very hard to substitute it with words like, that is wild. I do my best. I do my best with this linguistic evolution. But anyway, I digress.

Alyssa Scolari [18:13]:

So I wish that I could go back and I wish that I could tell myself that the truth is it doesn't necessarily matter if what happened to you was a one time thing, if what happened to you was traumatizing because it triggered things from the past. All that matters is that you are having an extremely strong reaction and you are experiencing symptoms of trauma. It doesn't matter. You don't necessarily need to have all of the pieces. I didn't have all the pieces back then and I wish, I wished then, and I wish now, that I had had a therapist that said to me, you don't need to have all the pieces of the puzzle for your emotions and your reactions to be valid.

Alyssa Scolari [19:08]:

Because I think that we get in our heads a lot about how, I think that something bad might have happened to me when I was younger and I don't have any memories, just kind of this weird feeling, but what if I'm just making it up? And what if it didn't really happen? And what if whatever did happen, wasn't really that big of a deal? But then the other question that we ask ourselves is, but then why am I like this? If nothing happened, why do I have these intense feelings? Why do I have these intense triggers? Why do I find myself feeling rage, or guilt, or shame over my body, or over the subject of sex or whatever it may be, why am I having this reaction if nothing happened?

Alyssa Scolari [20:01]:

And I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to put all the pieces of our childhood together and all the pieces of our past together, I should say, so that we can have an answer. And so that we can feel validated in saying, see, I am the way that I am because of A through Z that happened up to my life to this point. And unfortunately, trauma just never works like that because our brains are so brilliant and they're so wired for protection and survival, that there are certain things that our brains just store in the back, or just let go of forever. And that we can't store into memory as a way to protect ourselves. And I use this analogy with a lot of my clients. So I'm going to share it with you all because I think it's a really good one.

Alyssa Scolari [20:55]:

If you are a police officer or a law enforcement officer, and you get a call that there is a weird scene that you need to go out and investigate, and you go out to somebody's home and the glass is shattered and there are pools of blood on the floor. And there are shell casings from a gun and the furniture is broken and there's nobody home, but you just see lots of blood and broken glass and just lots of chaos, lots of disarray. It probably would make sense to a law enforcement officer or honestly, any human being that something really bad happened here.

Alyssa Scolari [21:54]:

Now, a police officer isn't going to go, well I don't have all the details and I don't have a body. So I'm not really going to investigate this and clearly nothing happened because nobody saw anything. I have no body, nobody saw anything. So clearly nothing happened and this is all just a random pile of disarray that means nothing. Yeah, no, that's not going to happen. Cops are not going to do that. Law enforcement officer's not going to do that. What they're going to do is they're going to be like, oh shit, something terrible happened here because look at all of the clues we have. We've got the blood, we've got the broken glass, we're going to dust for fingerprints, we've got fingerprints here, we've got a gun here, we've got shell casings. And they're going to do a thorough investigation, even though they don't have all of the pieces of the puzzle. And I think that we can use that analogy when it comes to trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [22:58]:

You may not ever get all of the pieces of the puzzle. I still don't have pieces of the puzzle. But I don't tell myself that just because I don't have those pieces doesn't mean that something bad happened or it doesn't mean that something bad didn't happen. Is that a double negative? Ah whatever, you get the gist of it. So we would still work on healing ourselves, and we would work with the clues that we have just as law enforcement would work with the clues that they have. The same thing goes. We get clues, whether it's, I'm finding myself getting really triggered during sex, or when somebody says this to me, I find myself getting really angry, or I find myself having nightmares all the time about something. I'm not quite sure what it is. I find myself being very hypervigilant. I panic often. I'm very sensitive to noises. You've got all those clues. You don't necessarily need the whole picture to call it what it is.

Alyssa Scolari [24:19]:

I hope that that is helpful because that has been super helpful for me because I am a big fan of invalidating myself. I was even doing it last night. I was sitting in my office and I had a break in between clients and I'm sitting there and I'm going well, what happened to me isn't nearly as bad as other things that I've seen people go through. And I found myself down this rabbit hole of like, who do I think I am, having a podcast, speaking about trauma when other people have had it so much worse than I have. And I was just like, Alyssa, stop sister, stop, stop doing that to yourself. Because all it did was make me feel like shit and it completely invalidated my experience. I invalidated my own experience. You don't deserve that. You don't need all the pieces to know it was trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [25:24]:

And the other thing I want to come back to you, which I said at the beginning, but I will circle back to, is that one thing that I think is very difficult in the world of mental health and the world of trauma, well, one of many things that I don't think gets talked about nearly enough is that, you know what? Sometimes trauma is about what you didn't get. So oftentimes there are folks that will say, I don't have a history of trauma. I was never abused, or raped, or assaulted, or living in poverty or a victim of a violent crime or whatever it may be. But trauma doesn't end there. Trauma can also be about what you didn't get in life. Did you not have stable parent figures? Did you not have the validation and support that you needed? Did you not have the financial security that you needed growing up? What didn't you have as a child? Because that can be just as traumatizing.

Alyssa Scolari [26:37]:

Now I know that as I go on and on about this, somebody out there is probably having this thought because my mother said this to me. And I think it's a very valid point. My mother said to me, back in May, I think we were having a conversation. And I was sort of giving my perspective on a situation and talking about trauma. And she said to me, "But you're a trauma therapist. Like you look at everything as trauma. Like, in your opinion, Alyssa, everyone has trauma." And I've actually been like really thinking about that for the last couple of months and I actually agree with her. I don't think that everything is trauma. I want to be clear about that. I really don't. I think that trauma really depends on the individual and that what might be traumatic for some person might not be traumatic for someone else. And I think a lot of that depends on protective factors. Like what's the level of support that they have? What are the types of resources that they have?

Alyssa Scolari [27:49]:

So I can get into protective factors on another podcast, but while I don't think that everything is traumatizing, I do think that everybody does have some level of trauma or will have some level of trauma in their lives. I mean, this pandemic alone has been traumatizing for folks. So I do believe that, and that's not really ... I do believe that there's more extensive trauma than others. But I do believe that everybody walks around carrying some level of trauma in their lives and that's okay.

Alyssa Scolari [28:35]:

Again, I think that when we hear the word trauma, we think of it as like, it has to be this huge, horrific thing. That like I was sexually abused as a child. Like no, it doesn't always have to be like that. It really doesn't. And it is so specific to every individual. But I do believe that all of us are walking around with our own undigested trauma, whether it be generational trauma, religious trauma, you name it. There are so many different types of trauma out there. So some people may disagree with that and take it or leave it. But I truly do believe that. And that doesn't mean that I'm pathologizing anybody. I don't think that trauma is what's wrong with you. I think that trauma is about what has happened to you. And I guess I just don't believe that any of us make it out of this world unscathed. So, I mean, that's my take on that.

Alyssa Scolari [29:36]:

So I hope that this was eye opening for some you. I hope that this was helpful for some of you. It took a lot of having to say this to myself over and over and over again, for me to start to realize what I was doing to myself and I still do it. Like I said, I was even doing it yesterday. I was invalidating myself. But ultimately, this is how I feel about it. This is my viewpoint on it. And I think that it doesn't matter the severity. If it's trauma, it's trauma and you don't need all the pieces to know it's trauma, and there's no such thing as it wasn't bad enough to be trauma, nobody gets to decide that for you. Nobody. The only one who gets to decide that is you and you alone.

Alyssa Scolari [30:37]:

So thank you for tuning in today. Thank you for listening. I really hope that this was helpful. Again, give me a follow on my Instagram, Light After Trauma and reach out, say hi, connect with me. I would love to hear from you. And if you have any questions about this or want any follow up questions answered again, just either shoot me an email, which is [email protected] or just DM me on Instagram. In the meantime, I will be back next week and it was a pleasure as always. Love getting to share some of this stuff with you all. And I will be holding you in the light and wishing you you all a beautiful week. And I will talk to you soon.

Alyssa Scolari [31:18]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram we are at Light After Trauma. And on Twitter, it is @LightAfterPod. Lastly, please head over to at patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support. [singing]

Christina Vitagliano shares her story from enduring child abuse to going on to start a multimillion-dollar business and publishing her own memoir. She breaks down the ripple effects that child abuse had on her life and why some of the effects of child abuse hit much so much harder in adulthood.

Christina's Website

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Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hey, warriors. Welcome back to another episode of Light After Trauma. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari, and we have with us today, Christina Vitagliano. Now, Christina is an author, entrepreneur and the founder of a successful family entertainment concept, Monster Mini Golf.

Having spent three decades working on her memoir, Christina hopes to share her story and touch the hearts of readers with her account of childhood abuse, empowering survivors to reclaim their lives and learn to thrive, despite their trauma. Her passion is to provide affordable, fun entertainment that the whole family can enjoy. Monster Mini Golf is a multi-million dollar company with 30 locations across the USA and Canada.

Without any further ado, I would love to introduce our guest today. We're going to be talking about childhood trauma with Christina. Welcome, Christina, how are you today?

Christina Vitagliano [01:31]:

I am good. How are you?

Alyssa Scolari [01:33]:

I am good. Really happy just to update the listeners. I just learned that while Christina is currently in Vegas, she's originally from the New England area, which I love. As all the listeners know, I'm a Jersey girl through and through, even though I live in PA now. Christina's accent feels like a warm cup of tea for me. Thank you for being here. I'm really happy to have you on the show.

Christina Vitagliano [02:02]:

Oh, thank you for inviting me.

Alyssa Scolari [02:04]:

Yeah, of course. You're spreading awareness about, I think, one of the most taboo topics in the field, people really shy away from talking about child abuse.

Christina Vitagliano [02:19]:

They do.

Alyssa Scolari [02:21]:

You are doing anything but shying away from that.

Christina Vitagliano [02:26]:

Took me a while, but yes.

Alyssa Scolari [02:28]:

I think that's important to point out, right? That it doesn't happen overnight for sure.

Christina Vitagliano [02:33]:

No.

Alyssa Scolari [02:35]:

I guess let's start with take me back to how you even became somebody who spreads awareness on childhood abuse. What is your story? Where did you come from? How did you get to where you are today?

Christina Vitagliano [02:53]:

Well, a quick overview. It started when I was about four years old and it lasted until I left home, which was around 16/17 years old. Actually I didn't move out until I was 18, but it was that whole period.

Alyssa Scolari [03:06]:

That was the whole period that you ... So you started being abused around the age of four?

Christina Vitagliano [03:06]:

Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [03:06]:

Okay.

Christina Vitagliano [03:11]:

Then I left home around 18 or when I legally could, I was out the door. Then I didn't tell anybody. I didn't talk about it. I didn't do anything. I'm sorry. That's my doorbell. Until I decided to sit down and write about it, which was about 20 something years ago. I sat down and just put it all on paper and then I sat on that for the last 20 years, and then finally published my memoir this year.

Alyssa Scolari [03:42]:

Wow.

Christina Vitagliano [03:43]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [03:45]:

Okay. You escaped your abusive environment. Now, when you were in your abusive environment, did you know at the time that that was abuse? When did you make that connection like, "Oh, this is what's happening here."

Christina Vitagliano [03:58]:

Well, God, at four years old I try to ... I remember ... I have a very, very good memory on some things, but I couldn't tell you what I had for lunch yesterday, but-

Alyssa Scolari [04:06]:

Same here.

Christina Vitagliano [04:06]:

... I do. I have such vivid ... That's a curse and a blessing at times, but very vivid memories. I remember being that young, knowing that what was happening wasn't right. I didn't know why it wasn't right. I didn't know ... Because you're four. I mean, you only know so much, but whatever it was, was wrong. On the flip side, I didn't want to mess up our family. My mom ... This was my stepdad and they had just gotten married.

My big thing was, "Don't make mom unhappy because she was so unhappy before and now this man makes her happy and I don't want to mess things up." You know? That's how it started. I think once you start down that path, and I don't know why, you just continue down that path of, "I am going to handle this myself. I'm not going to mess things up for anybody."

I was terrified that I would get taken away from the family and thrown into an orphanage, which to me was worse than what I was dealing with. Kind of short version of that whole story.

Alyssa Scolari [05:16]:

You're speaking such universal feelings and thoughts that children have, which is children have this concept that the devil you know ... And even adults, right?

Christina Vitagliano [05:16]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [05:28]:

The devil you know is better than the one that you don't. I think so many children endure what they need to endure for the sake of keeping the family together and not risking being pulled away from their family.

Christina Vitagliano [05:48]:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think as a child, it's instinctive that you want to make your mom or your dad, whoever it is you're bonded to, or even if it's both of them, instinctively your job is to make sure that you do what you're supposed to do and make them happy because that makes you happy. I don't know. I mean, it's a vicious circle, but that's not true. You shouldn't do some things just to make other people happy. It took me 30 years to figure that out. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [06:21]:

Yeah. Honestly, it takes some of us so much longer because that's what we think. You're right. It's, "I want to make this person happy. I see how happy my mom is. I don't want to be the bearer of bad news. I don't want to stir the pot." It's so difficult. How did you get ... Was it just that with age you began to change and then when you became a teenager, you were like, "I got to get out of here."

Christina Vitagliano [06:49]:

No. A couple of things. Like you said, you know it was wrong. I did know it was wrong at a very young age, and as you get older, boy, do you learn it's more wrong. I mean, so now this ridiculous thing of, "Wow, I'm going to protect everybody else." The wrong part gets so hard and as you get older, much harder because you learn more, but you keep dealing with it.

Then when I met my now husband, he was the first one that I ever told and he's the first one that ever approached me and said, "Hey, what's wrong with you?" I mean, short version, you know?

Alyssa Scolari [07:25]:

Right.

Christina Vitagliano [07:25]:

Hey, what the hell's wrong with you? He just did it in such a blunt way. We were young. We had been dating for maybe, I don't know, weeks. I had been previously married and divorced. Didn't tell him, didn't tell anybody I'd ever dated. Now I was about 30 years old, so I don't know if it was him in my face being so blunt and the only one who said, "What the hell happened to you?" Or if it was a combination of that and at 30 years old, you kind of ... I don't know what it is.

You hit these milestones in life. 30 is one of them though. You say, "What am I doing with my life?" You think you're an adult and you're not an adult at 30 because that's bullshit. I don't even know if I'm an adult at my age and I'm in my 50s. It's just, you start to question yourself as to what you think you know and, "Hey, maybe it's time I stand up and stop doing what I've been doing to myself."

You're abusing yourself really for so many years. I listened to one of your podcasts where you went through your relationship and I was like, "Dear God, how many of us have been down that same exact path with the same exact reasoning within ourselves?" Then one day you wake up and say, "Holy cow, I'm a dummy." In a good way though, it's a good thing to say because you realize you don't need to be that dummy all the time, you know?

Alyssa Scolari [08:50]:

Right. It's not like I'm a dummy in a disparaging-

Christina Vitagliano [08:55]:

No.

Alyssa Scolari [08:55]:

... a self-disparaging way. It's almost like you wake up one day and the pieces fall together and you're like, "Oh, God."

Christina Vitagliano [09:04]:

Where was I, man? I know.

Alyssa Scolari [09:07]:

Right. I feel so disconnected from the person that I was when I was in it and in those bad relationships. You also realize that the bad relationships that you then continue to have in your teens and 20s are because you didn't really know any better.

Christina Vitagliano [09:28]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [09:29]:

[crosstalk 00:09:29].

Christina Vitagliano [09:29]:

Or you've conditioned yourself to be who you are and it's instinctive, "Well, I'm going to make this person happy. I don't want to upset the applecart." I do that to this day. I still do that. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [09:42]:

Oh, yes. The chronic people-pleasing and not wanting to upset anybody. There are people ... I say this all the time, especially with, oh, one of my clients in particular where we talk about the red flags and how all the red flags look green. Even the red flags that are so bad, they're on fire we choose to look past.

Christina Vitagliano [10:03]:

Yep. It's almost you'll do anything to avoid turmoil. I don't even know why that is, but it is a common thing like, "Oh, geez, I don't want to make anything bad." You know? I don't know.

Alyssa Scolari [10:14]:

Yeah. I think it's because we're taught when we're so young that other people's feelings matter more than our trauma and what happens to us. That's the narrative that we carry around, that it doesn't matter. Yes. I'm unhappy and yes, maybe this person is hurting me, but this person is giving me love, some sort of love. Even if it's not what I really truly need or want, it's something and something is better than nothing. At the end of the day, my partner's feelings matter more than mine so I stay.

Christina Vitagliano [10:50]:

I remember. I went through a similar relationship that you spoke of in one of your podcasts and I thought to myself, "Oh, you can relate to every single word that you were saying." Then you wake up one day and say, "Hey, I know this sucks. I know I'm in a bad relationship. I know that he's really f'ing with me. You know what I mean? But I'm afraid to live alone. I'm terrified to be on my own. What would I do by myself?" Then one day you wake up and say, "I don't care what I do by myself."

I remember saying to myself, "If I sit in a room and I'm stuck watching TV for 12 hours a day because I have nothing else to do, I don't have any friends anymore because he's alienated everybody, then that's okay with me." As soon as you decide that whatever it is, is okay, and is better than what you were dealing with, the door opens.

Then you're just like, "Well, this is all good." You realize everything you thought was complete bullshit." Because it's not that bad out there by yourself. You know?

Alyssa Scolari [11:52]:

Yeah. Eventually you'll get to a point ... Well, I shouldn't say everybody because some people spend their whole lives in-

Christina Vitagliano [12:00]:

Oh, you're right.

Alyssa Scolari [12:01]:

... one toxic relationship to the next, which breaks my heart and is part of the reason why we sit here and talk about this. It's just about awareness. Yeah. I think some people do get to a point where the pain of being in the situation is greater than the pain that it would take to change. That's when change comes.

I guess I'm wondering for you, what do you think got you to a point where you were like, "Okay. I'm going to sit down and I'm going to write all of this out." Because you said this was what? Like 20 years ago that you wrote all this down?

Christina Vitagliano [12:37]:

Yeah. I don't know because once my ... It wasn't my husband then, but once he asked me, "Hey, what happened to you?" When I answered that, you've held that in for that long. Now all of a sudden it's raw and it's in your face and he's the kind of guy that just asked and asked and asked. He won't stop asking.

Alyssa Scolari [12:57]:

He doesn't let it go.

Christina Vitagliano [12:58]:

He doesn't let it go, and I'm the person, and on the flip side, I'm still the people-pleaser so I answered all of those questions that I probably didn't want to answer at the time, but I did, which is a good thing I think in the long run because it was ... But once it was all out there, I was like, "Wow."

As I'm talking about it, I'm teaching myself, "Wow. There's a lot of things I should have done differently and I don't want anyone else to have to deal with any of this. If you could help anybody at that point, you're like, "Holy cow, nobody should have to deal with some of this." I started to put it down on paper and I said, "I'm going to start from the beginning." And I just kept going. My husband, he teases me.

He said, "For six months, all I saw was the back of your head on the computer." Because it's all I was doing, was writing, writing, writing. Then when I got done, I was like, "All right, now I want to publish this." Now, of course knew nothing about publishing, and 20 something years ago, self-publishing didn't really exist like it does now. I learned, "Holy cow, I have to have this professionally edited." Then I learned that cost about $5,000 plus at the time.

I didn't have any money. Then that was the next hurdle. How do you get from this raw bunch of words to it being fine-tuned and ready to go to a publisher? Then, will anybody even want to publish it? I sat on that. I didn't have the $5,000. I had left my career when I married my husband because I didn't want to be a workaholic.

There's a lot of things I think that when you come out of an abusive relationship, whether it's child abuse or whatever that's happened over a long period of time, you're not just affected with who you are mentally, but I don't know, my vice was working. I didn't drink. I didn't do any drugs, nothing like that, but I worked because work consumed my brain. When this all came out, I learned that I also have to fix that.

I can't be working 70 hours a week and married to my job because if you're going to have a relationship, that person deserves some of you too. I wasn't capable of doing both of them. I knew that. I literally quit my career. Said, "I'm going to give this relationship thing a shot because I failed so many other times." I left that and went to work with my husband and started doing some things in odds and ends.

Of course, we had no money. We're living on like peanut butter. After I wrote the book, I'm like, "I need $5,000. I don't have $5,000." I created a company called Monster Mini Golf and-

Alyssa Scolari [15:34]:

That's how you became the accidental entrepreneur.

Christina Vitagliano [15:37]:

Yes. In my head I was like, "I'm going to raise $5,000. I can do mini golf indoors, me and a friend, and when I raise the five grand, maybe I can get it published and then I'll be able to make enough money to live on too in the meantime. That was almost 20 years ago. Now we have 30 Monster Mini Golf locations. We franchised it. We've got two crazy locations in casinos in Vegas here, one with KISS and one with the Twilight Zone.

I got sucked in and I became a workaholic and my husband owns this company with me so I kind of turned him into one now. Now he wants to be the workaholic and I don't want to be so that's its own battle. Yeah. Then when the pandemic hit, I sat down and said, "Oh, okay, we're closed. There's nothing to do. Hey, self-publishing is amazing. Look at all of this." I self-published.

Alyssa Scolari [16:38]:

Yeah. Yes. Now you have this book out titled Every 9 Minutes.

Christina Vitagliano [16:45]:

Yep. Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [16:46]:

Can you tell us a little bit about this book? Is this detailing your life-

Christina Vitagliano [16:51]:

It is.

Alyssa Scolari [16:52]:

... and what you went through?

Christina Vitagliano [16:54]:

It is. It's titled Every 9 Minutes because every nine minutes there is a reported case of child abuse in the United States. Just in the United States, the rest of the world I can't even imagine, and that's reported.

Alyssa Scolari [17:10]:

Right. That's what's reported.

Christina Vitagliano [17:12]:

Child abuse, I think the majority is not ... I never reported mine because it's so taboo and you just condition nobody tells anybody about it and all kinds of very bad things are wrong with the whole subject. Anyway, that's where the title came from. The book is a memoir. I've changed a lot of names. I've changed a lot of places, just because respect for people that I ... Other people, good people. But I kept my name in it.

It starts in 1969, which is when I'm four years old and it ends when I met my husband and how the whole thing came to light and I talked it. It spans 30 years, but I think a lot of people ... And I apologize with my dogs upstairs. I think-

Alyssa Scolari [17:57]:

Oh, is that what that is? Is that your dog?

Christina Vitagliano [17:59]:

We have two bulldog pups and they're insane. I think a lot of folks will ... And it's getting better. People will talk about child abuse and they'll talk about their experience of abuse. I think when I wrote this book, it spans that long because it's not just about the abuse. It's about the effect that the abuse has on you for that period of time.

Alyssa Scolari [18:24]:

That is so important that you said that because yes, when we talk about abuse, we cannot just talk about the incidents themselves.

Christina Vitagliano [18:36]:

No.

Alyssa Scolari [18:36]:

Because they have ripple effects onto your life for decades and ages to come. I love that you said that. I mean, it's so important not to just talk about, "Oh, this is what happens to me." But then what happened after.

Christina Vitagliano [18:50]:

This is what happened to me as a result of what happened to me.

Alyssa Scolari [18:52]:

Yes. Yeah.

Christina Vitagliano [18:54]:

This is why all these things happen. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [18:57]:

You said it best. You said it best.

Christina Vitagliano [19:01]:

A lot of people don't talk about that because ... and there's nothing ... I think it's because when somebody hears that subject, it just is like, "Wow." It's so big on its own that people have to get what happened out. To me, and this is a really weird thing, what was happening was the abuse became so routine to me that, yeah, I'm like, "I can handle that crap."

It's everything else that's happening to me that I couldn't figure out until I was old enough to say, "Oh, it's all because of that crap." You know?

Alyssa Scolari [19:35]:

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, you're exactly right. I think it's so important and I guess one of the questions that I have for you is, what is your goal with this book? Are you trying to show people that they're not alone? Are you trying to show people that they can survive this? What was the goal for publishing this?

Christina Vitagliano [20:02]:

Yeah. I think you hit the nail on the head there. A few things. One, we're not alone. Two, I'm okay to talk about it if you guys can't, because there's a lot of people who can't talk about it. It doesn't matter whether we should or shouldn't. They just never will be able to. Sometimes knowing that somebody else is talking about it makes life a little bit better and yes, you can ... You know what's weird? I don't like the word survive it because I hate surviving shit.

Surviving, it hurts. I don't want to hurt anymore and it's going to hurt forever and ever that never goes away. I think you have to try to overcome the intensity of it and overcome, you will never overcome it, but you have to outbalance it. You know what I mean? Yes, it's there, but I'm going to stay a step above it and keep it in check. Surviving it is bullshit because you never survive it. That's crap I think.

Alyssa Scolari [21:02]:

Yeah. Absolutely. I like what you said there, that it's not so much about surviving it as it is about managing the intensity of it. It's about not letting the memories and the flashbacks and the feelings and the urges swallow you whole and take over your entire life.

Christina Vitagliano [21:23]:

Yep. There are ... And it's weird. I think ... Some of it, I wrote about and some of it I don't because you can't write everything and you don't want to share literally everything. It's a hard subject to actually write about because people have a hard time reading about it too. You had to balance, "Hey, I have to share it and I don't want to share everything."

I remember my editor when she went through it and you go through a child abuse scene in the book. She would come back to me and she would say, "Okay. Well, this is good. Change this. You have errors here and whatever." Then once in a while, she'll go, "Hey, detail this scene more." I'm like, "No. I'm not going to detail that scene more. Are you out of your mind? It's amazing that those words are there." But it was-

Alyssa Scolari [22:03]:

Right. Like, "You're lucky I even got this much. There's no way I can detail this."

Christina Vitagliano [22:09]:

Man, that was, I think ... You're like, "How was it writing it?" Writing it was one thing, dealing with the editing and having somebody above you or with you on your team say, "This is good but if you really want to share, and you want somebody to understand that you can outbalance this or do whatever, you have to show them what happened."

Some of that stuff came back to me four and five times and finally ... It was over Christmas, this past Christmas before I published, right before I published. I sat on that book for about six weeks because of her notes. I was like, "I can't do it. I can't do what she's asking me to do." Another part of me was saying, "If you want this to be published and you want to share it and you want people to see what happened to actually make the point come across, then you have to do what she asked."

It took six weeks and one day I got up. Just like I think we always ... Hey, you get up and all the puzzle pieces fell into place or kind of, and I said, "I'm going to give it a shot." I did, and when I got done it was like I had to go shower. I'm like, "I just got to walk away from that. Just don't ask me to read it again." You got the words, but somebody else read it now because I've just lived it too many times.

Alyssa Scolari [23:24]:

Yeah. That's I think another really important point, is I'm sure as you were writing it, or even going through the editing process, you find yourself right back in it.

Christina Vitagliano [23:36]:

Oh, it's brutal. The editing process was the worst because when you edit ... My book is about 370 pages. It started at 600 because for me to break from the time I was four, until whenever I thought the end was, I literally had to go through my entire life. Then somebody picks it up and says, "We don't need to know what you had for lunch one day." But I couldn't get from AA to B. We had to get rid of all that crap.

Because it took me 20 years to publish, by the time I actually got it published, I had read that thing so many times it's just reliving it and reliving it and reliving it. Yes, it was good, but in some ways now, and I'm going to be honest, I'm very, very angry at things that I ... They just make you angry. It's like, "Why did these people let this happen? Why are these people today still siding with that guy?" Family members that were like "Oh, he's a saint."

I'm like, "You're choosing not to see reality." That's a very hard thing to deal with. I have to be the person that says, "Well, that's your problem now." My issue is let's help people who want to be helped and band together.

Alyssa Scolari [24:52]:

That's the hardest part, is it's the reactions of the other people, right?

Christina Vitagliano [24:52]:

Oh, it's horrible.

Alyssa Scolari [25:03]:

You're bearing your soul and then there are people that go, "What are you talking about? He was a great guy. What are you doing this for?" That pure unfiltered rage, rage that you must feel like ... Yet, in this moment, you're in these moments where you are being almost like ... not forced, but you have the pressure on to share more and be a little bit more vulnerable.

Then you're met with opposition from people, family members or friends or people who know you that are like, "What are you talking about? This is a good guy." In those moments, what kept you going? How did you stay true to the fact that this was right for you?

Christina Vitagliano [25:55]:

Anger.

Alyssa Scolari [25:57]:

Turning that rage into something productive.

Christina Vitagliano [25:59]:

Yeah. You say persevere, survive, overcome. Yeah, sure. All of that. Anger. I'm like, "No. You're wrong." More that I'm not the only one. I mean, nobody talks about this and in this day and age where we have ... And I will give ... Like well, let's say the millennials, because they want to cancel everything. On the flip side, people are speaking out more than anything in the world, but they won't speak about this.

How do you want to do everything in the world and fix it all, ooh, but not that subject? That's too cool. That's too taboo. I don't want to do that. I want to get to the point where screaming about this too.

Alyssa Scolari [26:39]:

Yes.

Christina Vitagliano [26:39]:

You know?

Alyssa Scolari [26:41]:

Yeah. We're going to scream about this too.

Christina Vitagliano [26:44]:

Yeah. We're at that point where if enough of us are yelling, somebody will, people will say, "Okay. Well, it is about time." Celebrities have definitely been more vocal about it, and I think that's great that they are. I think being a normal person and not that celebrity and everybody protects ... not protects them, but they have the voice.

I think that when you see a celebrity come out and say, "I was abused or this is happening in Hollywood." You're like, "Well, that's good. I'm glad somebody is talking about it." But you still feel like, "I'm just a normal person and nobody listened to me." I want to be the normal person that speaks out kind of. You know?

Alyssa Scolari [27:24]:

Yes. The thing is survivors of childhood abuse, we've all got rage and if we're not taking that rage and if we're not using it to speak up and speak out about this taboo topic and shout it from the rooftops, what child abuse is, how it affects people in the long-term, what this does to us, then that rage is still going to be there. It's still going to go somewhere and nine times out of 10, we're going to take it out on ourselves in ways that are self-destructive.

Christina Vitagliano [27:56]:

You are a hundred percent correct. Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [27:59]:

That rage has to go somewhere. There's so much power in using your voice, whether it's through writing, whether it's through speaking, taking that rage that you're talking about, which I'm glad you said it, because honestly that is what keeps us going. Rage.

Christina Vitagliano [28:15]:

It is. [crosstalk 00:28:15].

Alyssa Scolari [28:15]:

Pure rage.

Christina Vitagliano [28:17]:

Yep. You have to keep it in check because we can't go running around with knives and guns, even though your head says, "Well, I wish I could." But you can't.

Alyssa Scolari [28:24]:

I wish I could.

Christina Vitagliano [28:25]:

I wish I could.

Alyssa Scolari [28:25]:

I wish I could.

Christina Vitagliano [28:27]:

Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [28:27]:

I wish I could.

Christina Vitagliano [28:28]:

Yep, but this isn't the cartoons.

Alyssa Scolari [28:29]:

Right. You have managed to take all of that anger, all of that grief and turn it into something that this is your voice. Your voice. I have to ask you, when you look back on the years in which you were enduring abuse, were there times where you just wanted to completely give up?

Christina Vitagliano [28:59]:

Oh, of course. Yes. Just yes. Yeah. I think more as ... That's weird because even after I've talked about it and it was out in the open and I wrote it down before I published, more as I got older. I think there's something about this subject, well abusive of any kind, the older you get, it seems like because you get smarter and wisdom kicks in. I think when you're younger, you don't realize how bad it is or how wrong it is.

Then you get more educated on people and then you realize how jaded adults are and they're teaching their children the wrong thing. You get angrier. In some ways it's harder to deal with the older I get, but because you're smarter and because you've learned a lot, you learn to balance it better. It's not easy by any means though.

Alyssa Scolari [30:05]:

I love that you're saying this because this is what happens. It's fantastic because I think that so many people scratch their heads over why adults tend to be so distraught about abuse that happened to them when they were younger. I think a lot of people ... I've seen a lot of people, even people when talking about themselves, and even me personally, when I started a lot of my memories were repressed. When I started to have all of these memories, I was an adult.

There were moments that I've had, and I know a lot of my clients have had, where it's like, "Why am I so upset about this now? Why am I more upset about this today than I was 25 years ago when this happened?" It's because the older you get, the more you know, the more you understand and the more you feel and the more you have language to be able to put to what you feel. It's actually very, very natural. It's actually harder when you're older, so [crosstalk 00:31:16].

Christina Vitagliano [31:15]:

Yeah. What makes me anger is as you know all of that and you say to yourself, "Goddammit, that's why these adults are abusing children because they know that." I got angrier and still get angry because I'm like, "Well, this person was a full grown adult and what they were doing was bad, but they were a hundred percent aware of what they were doing too and I think that's what makes you angrier as you get older, is you really, really did something terrible to a child with full knowledge of what you were doing. You know?

Alyssa Scolari [31:53]:

Yes. There's no excuse. No excuse for it. You knew, you know, you took full advantage.

Christina Vitagliano [32:01]:

You chose to do that. That's a choice. You know what I mean? It's not a sickness. That's a bunch of bullshit. You've chosen to do that. If it was carried on from your parents, then that's a shame, but this is why we're standing here today talking about it so that maybe it doesn't keep going because nobody seems to care that it is going.

Alyssa Scolari [32:21]:

Yeah. You know? When you talk about the whole, it's a sickness type thing. You know what? Whether it's a sickness or not, I don't give a fuck because you know what? I have a sickness. I have complex trauma and do I walk around hurting people? No.

Christina Vitagliano [32:37]:

Exactly. I don't care if it's a sickness. It still shouldn't happen. You know?

Alyssa Scolari [32:42]:

There's no excuse. It's not an excuse.

Christina Vitagliano [32:43]:

No. No.

Alyssa Scolari [32:44]:

Right?

Christina Vitagliano [32:45]:

Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [32:46]:

It wouldn't be an excuse for me to get drunk and get in my car because I had a night where I was traumatized. That's not an excuse, so why-

Christina Vitagliano [32:57]:

Yeah. Why is it okay for these other people?

Alyssa Scolari [32:58]:

... why do we make excuses? Why do we excuse child abusers so often? It's infuriating. I could scream about it from the rooftops.

Christina Vitagliano [33:09]:

It really is. It really is.

Alyssa Scolari [33:11]:

It really is. This book that you've written, it feels like it's a message, not just for other people, but also for your younger self. Like a message to hang on because look at ... Could you ever have imagined the life that you have for yourself now? Would you ever have pictured it?

Christina Vitagliano [33:29]:

No. Not in a million years. Not even close. Yeah. Yeah, so weird.

Alyssa Scolari [33:36]:

I'm going to ask you another pretty candid question. Knowing what you know now about how your life was going to turn out, are you glad you stayed? Are you glad you hung on?

Christina Vitagliano [33:52]:

Through all of it, you mean?

Alyssa Scolari [33:53]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Christina Vitagliano [33:55]:

Yeah. I mean, not glad that it happened obviously, but yes. Yes. I always ... Part of me, I think survived ... And this is my individual case, I think is because my father was so jealous in some weird way that if I got a better grade in school than his crazy son did, that would piss him off. I learned, "Oh, well, then fuck you. I'm going to piss you off." In a lot of ways, I was like, "Oh, yeah, he's failing and you want me to fail too? I'm not going to fail."

There's a lot of things that ... And I think a lot of us do that is, "Oh, you don't like that. There's a way I can piss you off, but not piss you off." You know what I mean?

Alyssa Scolari [34:41]:

Yeah.

Christina Vitagliano [34:41]:

I just became this driven, crazy person to not be like the rest of my family. I don't want to say there's good that comes out of bad because nobody wants to go through that bad. Nobody should ever go through that bad, but because of the abuse there are, I don't know, things about me that I'm glad that they're like that, you know? I don't know. It's a hard thing to explain. Not that I'm thankful for him for anything, but you know?

Alyssa Scolari [35:17]:

No. Right. We're not thankful. It's not like we're glad that it happened because it taught us a lesson.

Christina Vitagliano [35:24]:

[crosstalk 00:35:24].

Alyssa Scolari [35:23]:

None of that. It's just a matter of I think for the people out there who are in this, in the thick of it and just want to give up and want to end their lives, and want to throw in the towel and say, "Fuck it."

It's like, I think about you and your story and you've managed to go from being severely abused, to getting out, getting married, starting a multi-million dollar business, writing a book, being a voice for those who don't have a voice. I think to myself like, "If that's not a message for the listeners out there to keep going, I don't know what is." Because look at where you're at now.

It's so inspirational and it gives so much hope, even though, you're very real about, listen, some days are bullshit. Some of this sucks. This sucks. It's still infuriating and I'm not over it because we don't get over it. We do not get over it, but we learn how to not let it consume us.

Christina Vitagliano [36:43]:

Yeah. That's the balance.

Alyssa Scolari [36:46]:

That's the balance.

Christina Vitagliano [36:49]:

Yep. It is.

Alyssa Scolari [36:52]:

Now, if people ... Because I just feel like this book ... First of all, for the listeners out there, this book has like well over a hundred reviews, I think I was looking on Amazon.

Christina Vitagliano [36:52]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [37:06]:

Yeah. This book has well over ... almost 120 reviews on Amazon, extremely high-rated book. If people want to find more about you, want to find your book, what's the best place they should go? Should they go right to Amazon? You tell us.

Christina Vitagliano [37:29]:

Amazon's definitely the easiest so if you're in Amazon and search Every 9 Minutes, it pops up. My social media, I'm always obviously promoting my book, but if you look up Every 9 Minutes on anything, Twitter or anybody, it'll obviously pop up. My website and all my social media handles are 123ChristinaV, so whether you're on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, or my website is 123christinav.com, you can find me there. You can message me from anything anywhere. I'm very responsive.

Alyssa Scolari [38:03]:

Fantastic. You said that's 123ChristinaV?

Christina Vitagliano [38:08]:

Yep. And .com is my website. Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [38:13]:

Okay. Okay. For the listeners out there, I'm going to link that in the show notes. Head on over to the show notes so you can find that. You'll have access there to everything. Christina is also ... She's a speaker. She does so much. Check out this book. The link will be in there. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Christina Vitagliano [38:36]:

Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [38:37]:

It was an honor to talk to you. I think you're shedding light on the ripple effects of childhood abuse and you're screaming it from the rooftops.

Christina Vitagliano [38:47]:

Thank you for having me.

Alyssa Scolari [38:49]:

Of course. It was a pleasure. Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter it is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show.

We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you. We appreciate your support.

Have you ever felt like you just don't deserve to be happy? Or more specifically, have you ever found yourself having self-harm urges or feeling suicidal after someone is genuinely kind to you? If so, you are not alone. Tune in to understand the reasons why this might happen as well as how you can train your brain to start accepting love and kindness.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hey, Warriors, what's up? And welcome back to another episode of The Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari ,and I am honored to be here with you. We're doing a solo episode today. So some housekeeping things first. I just wanted to say thank you so so much for 15,000 downloads on the podcast. I am blown away and continue to be blown away. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That was a really exciting milestone.

Alyssa Scolari [00:56]:

The other thing I wanted to say is head on over, if you haven't done so already, to my Instagram page lightaftertrauma is the handle. So it's just the exact same title as the podcast. And check out some of the content and let me know what you think. If there's more you want to see. I have really been boosting the amount of content and really putting it out there. I'm trying to put out content about four days a week and I'm also going to be doing an Instagram live this Thursday, October 7th, at 8:00 PM Eastern time. So that's Eastern standard time. I would love it if you could make it. Even if you can pop in for only 30 seconds to just say hi, I would love to meet you. This is my first official Instagram live. So I'm really excited for it.

Alyssa Scolari [01:50]:

And yeah, I can't wait to meet the folks who have been listening to the podcast because it feels like I have a bunch of friends out there. And I know I've said this before, but it just feels like I have so many friends out there, but I don't know their names. And I would love to just talk to you. And thank you personally, we're talking about stress management on the Instagram live, so I'm going to share some stress management tips because Lord knows we all need it.

Alyssa Scolari [02:14]:

So that's this Thursday, October 7th at 8:00 PM. Eastern Standard Time. I will be on Instagram live, feel free to come join. The Instagram handle is lightaftertrauma and thank you always for your support and your love. I love you all so much. And also if you haven't done so already, please leave a rating or review for the podcast. The more ratings we get, the more we grow and the wider audience we reach so that we can give even more free content to people all around the world.

Alyssa Scolari [02:49]:

So if you are a listener of the podcast and you like what you're hearing, or if you hate what you're hearing and you want things to be different, just go leave an honest review. Let me know your thoughts. I would be honored to hear from you because this podcast really is for you. So yeah. Please leave a review. I would really appreciate it.

Alyssa Scolari [03:12]:

Okay. So today, so I cannot take credit for the inspiration for the topic of today's episode. This topic came from a podcast listener, so thank you. I will not name their name because they did not give me permission to do so. So you know who you are. I told you I was going to be doing an episode about this topic this week. Thank you so much for reaching out and sending me an email. It was great to connect with you.

Alyssa Scolari [03:42]:

So today we are talking about feeling like you don't deserve to heal and feeling like you don't deserve nice things or compliments or healthy relationships, or really any kind of genuine relationship. Feeling like you just deserve loneliness and heartbreak because that is the narrative that you grew up believing because that is what you had experienced for of your life.

Alyssa Scolari [04:22]:

I love this topic because it really resonates with me. When I first started my recovery journey and I was in therapy, my therapist, who was truly not, she's not the greatest at all. And she did a lot of harmful things and this was one of them. When I started this process and started uncovering a lot of repressed memories, I was in a spiral. I was going out of my mind. They were definitely some of the worst years of my life and, dare I say, at many points I often remember saying to my therapist or my husband, "This process is actually harder than experiencing the trauma itself." And that's not a fact. That's just my lived experience is that having to like work through it and having all those memories come to the surface so much harder than the trauma itself. Again, that's just my experience.

Alyssa Scolari [05:28]:

So when all of this started happening and I started having all these memories flood back, my therapist was really good at showering me with compliments. Which, I think that there's a debate on whether or not therapists should be constantly complimenting their patients. I think it depends on the type of compliment. It depends on the goal of the compliment. But my therapist, wasn't very good at holding space for me being in that spot. She very much wanted me to be healed and happy and she wanted me to immediately see how wonderful I was and be done. And I wasn't there. It was going to me a long time to get there. But in that process, all of her compliments, and when I say compliments I mean things like, "Look at how well you're doing. Look at how you're still functioning in life even though you've been through so much."

Alyssa Scolari [06:35]:

Let's see, what else did she say? Oh, she was full of them. "Look at what a wonderful family you have. Look at the husband that you have." She used to talk about my husband like, "He's such a wonderful guy and you did all of these things. You have this amazing, wonderful life now." And what I noticed was happening for me is the more she talked about how amazing my life is, right? She would kind of say, "Yes, this trauma happened. These terrible things happened, but your life is so amazing now." And the more she would say that to me, the worse I would get when it came to self harm, any kind of like self-deprecating, the self-deprecation increased. Really all the self-destructive behaviors skyrocketed. And I noticed this pattern early on, but I didn't quite understand it enough.

Alyssa Scolari [07:33]:

So I wasn't really able to talk to my therapist about it at the time because I didn't understand what was going on. But it wasn't just my therapist. Right? It was anybody in my life. If somebody would say, particularly the words, "I'm proud of you," were really hard for me to hear. And if somebody would say that I would spiral. I can recall a time where, so I have, had a supervisor, I should say. My supervisor has now blossomed into a wonderful friend and mentor, Rebecca Christensen. She's been on the podcast before. She's amazing. She's just, she's an angel on earth is really what I can say about Rebecca.

Alyssa Scolari [08:21]:

But you know, when I first started meeting with Rebecca and she helped me ultimately open up my private practice and she would often say, "I am so proud of you for doing this. I am so proud of you for doing that." And don't get me wrong. She didn't mean anything about it. She had no idea that I was panicking when I would hear those words and neither did anybody else, so this is not a blame game. My therapist definitely knew. So I do place the appropriate amount of blame on her, but for everybody else, this is not a blame game.

Alyssa Scolari [08:56]:

So she would say all the time, Rebecca, "I'm really proud of you. Look at all you're doing. You're amazing. You're going to do great things in life." And I would, she might say that in a text message. And I would not be able to look at it. If I were to open up my phone and I could see like the, the first, I don't know, whatever, three to five words of the text. And if I could tell that it was a compliment, I would have to shut my phone off and put it down and I couldn't look at it.

Alyssa Scolari [09:25]:

And then I would start to panic. And then I would call for David. And then I would usually end up crying or having a panic attack. And then eventually I would read the kind message and I would have another panic attack. And then I would talk to David about it incessantly. And I would be like, "Well, David, what does this mean? Do people actually think that I'm kind? Do people actually think I'm a good person? How can this be?" And then I would say, "Well, David, they just don't know the truth. They just don't know what I'm really like. They just don't know how evil I am, how insane I am."

Alyssa Scolari [10:09]:

Because I truly thought that I was in every sense of the word, insane. That all of the memories that were coming back were false and that something just broke in my brain. So I said to David all the time, "These people who are showering me with compliments and telling me I'm a good therapist, they just don't know the real me. And if they really knew what I was like, they would hate as much as I hate me."

Alyssa Scolari [10:42]:

How sad is that? I take a moment to pause and reflect on that because I was fighting for my life and I couldn't even tell how amazing I was doing it. It wasn't until, let me think. Yeah. You know, it, it wasn't really until the last year or so. And I attribute so much of my healing to this podcast. Hasn't really been until the last year that I have been able to sit with compliments. So I'm sure that I'm not alone in this. And I know I'm not because the podcast listener, that I was referring to earlier, emailed me and told me that this is one of the most difficult things for them. And I could not agree more in the beginning when I was first understanding everything I had been through and trying to make sense of it all. I couldn't hear that I was a great person.

Alyssa Scolari [11:40]:

I couldn't hear how strong I was, because I didn't even know if what I was remembering really happened. Or if what I was remembering was just some figment of my imagination. And I think a lot of trauma survivors feel that way. Whether or not we repressed our abuse or not. Whether or not we have repressed trauma or we have a full memory of it, I think a lot of us feel this way. Well, what if I made something up? Well, what if I could have done something differently when I was traumatized and then nothing bad would've happened to me?

Alyssa Scolari [12:15]:

We find ways in our head all the time to make the trauma our fault, because that gives us a sense of control. And it makes us feel like we could have done something about it. So I just couldn't handle it. And I know that I would resort to binge eating really before, before I was able to recover from my eating disorder, lots of compliments and lots of praise and lots of attention would often result in binge eating and occasionally cutting.

Alyssa Scolari [12:46]:

But I would say more so binge eating to try to stuff down any of the feelings that were coming up from me when I was having somebody genuinely love me and care for me. I couldn't tolerate it. And I'm sure a lot of us are wondering, right? Like, "Well, why?" Like, "Yes, I do that too. You know? Yes, I also can't take a compliment. Why is that? I get really uncomfortable when people will praise me or compliment me. Why am I like that?" And let's break it down on the most basic, like a fundamental level.

Alyssa Scolari [13:21]:

So when we look at your brain structure, when you have complex trauma and you have a history of being invalidated, unheard, unseen, gaslit, made to feel like your voice doesn't matter. If you've been sexually abused, physically abused, emotionally abused, whatever it's been, your brain develops., especially if you experience this as a child, that changes the development of your brain. So without getting too technical, because I am a brain nerd and I could absolutely go off on this, but I won't. So without getting too technical, what happens is your brain develops and gets to this sort of homeostasis where it is so used to the invalidation.

Alyssa Scolari [14:18]:

It is used to being ignored. We are used to being unheard. So, you know, somebody gas lights us. We're like, "Yep. That's just one more person trying to fuck with my head." Somebody sexually abuses us. We're like, "Yep. That's just one more person who doesn't respect my body." Doesn't mean that it's not traumatizing. Please don't misunderstand me because it is all extremely traumatizing. But when you're in it and you're in the thick of it, we learn to expect the worst things to happen to us. "Well, yeah, of course my mom said that to me." Or, "Of course my dad said that to me. That's what he said his whole life. That's just dad. That's just what he does."

Alyssa Scolari [15:06]:

So we sort of developed this pattern of accepting the abuse and accepting things that people say that hurt us. Shit, if I could go back now and talk back to all of the people who have ever said horrible things. Whew. I wish I could. I wish I could. And, and sometimes I have, right? Sometimes I have. But I know for so many of us, we can't and back then, I know for me, I was just like, "Yep, this is one more person who has let me down or disappointed me. Or one more person who has crossed a boundary, but I don't feel of comfortable speaking up or I'm not going to say anything because you know what, that's what people do. People don't respect my boundaries. So I'm used to it."

Alyssa Scolari [15:58]:

So then you have somebody come along, and a lot of times it's your therapist, because we talk about this stuff in therapy all the time. It's a little bit easier to brush off compliments from friends because we're just like, "Ah, yeah. You're my friend. I know you like me. Whatever." A kind of take it for granted type of thing. But when we finally go to therapy and we are getting treatment and our therapist is genuinely proud of us. Or we we can tell that whatever was said, whatever that therapist said, gave us this message that they genuinely care. That they genuinely want us to get better. That they genuinely see the good in us our brains initially are kind of like, "We're not used to this. What is this? Somebody respecting my boundaries? Oh no, I can't handle it."

Alyssa Scolari [16:53]:

And then what happens? Right? We panic. Oftentimes we feel guilty. Oftentimes we get extremely uncomfortable. We feel shame. And we just kind of want that moment to be over. And we want to brush it under the rug, because we're really uncomfortable. Sometimes it gets even worse where that comment kind of sits in our brain. And then we feel like we have to self destruct because it's like, "Nah, my therapist said that to me. And that can't be true. That can't be true. My therapist just doesn't really understand what a monster I am. So I'm going to show them what a monster I am." And a lot of this is subconscious. I want to point that out. Right? I don't think any of this for most people is like a conscious stream of thought that we sit in.

Alyssa Scolari [17:39]:

It's like, "Well, how can I show my therapist what a monster I am?" I do think a lot of this is subconscious and for me it certainly was subconscious. So our brains simply can't tolerate it because it is so new. And the brain on trauma is very hypervigilant. It is extra wired for protection. So when we are receiving information that is brand new to us, we automatically label it as a threat, even though it's a compliment, right? Even though it's something like, "Hey, Alyssa, I just really love the way that you are so resilient and you keep going and you keep getting up and you're able to also work through your own shit and be there for other people. I think that's amazing. You're doing great things in this world."

Alyssa Scolari [18:26]:

Oh, I'm cringing. I'm cringing as I say it. Cringing as I say it, because it is so hard and my brain is like, "No, that can't be right. That can't be right. We're not used to receiving this kind of information." So even though it's good stuff, my brain is hearing that and going, "Ugh, no, no, no, no, no. This must be a threat. This must be a threat." And then what happens when your body perceives a threat, right? You go into fight, flight, freeze, or falling. And we panic or we self destruct or we shut down or we kind of just laugh because we don't know what else to do. Or we kind of mimic the facial expressions of the person next to us because that's what's supposed to keep us the safest.

Alyssa Scolari [19:10]:

So that is, breaking it down on a fundamental level, that is why this happens. So the good news is this changes. It has certainly changed for me. I had somebody text me, I want to say, what's today? It's Sunday, October 3rd, when I'm recording. So I had somebody text me on Friday, October 1st. And this person was somebody that I used to work with a few years back and she follows me on social media and she texted me only to say, "I am so proud of you. And I hope that one day I can be half the clinician that you are." And man, that was amazing to hear.

Alyssa Scolari [20:08]:

But I have to say that if this were to two years ago, I would've not been able to tolerate it. I would've started sobbing and I would've showed David and I would've had a panic attack. And I would've said, "She doesn't know the real me. She does not know the real me." But today I open up my phone and I see that and I go, "Oh man, this is awesome."

Alyssa Scolari [20:39]:

This is somebody who did not have to do that. With as busy as everybody is, people don't have time for compliments. People usually just make time for the complaints. People are so much more likely to complain than compliment someone. So for her to find the time out of her busy day to pick up her phone and compliment me when it's, doesn't really, it's not going to affect her. Right? This was a completely selfless act, as small as it might seem, it actually feels really big to me. And I just smiled and I teared up a little bit, but I teared up because I'm just so grateful and very humbled by the love that I've received, but I can tolerate it now.

Alyssa Scolari [21:34]:

And the reason I can tolerate it is because of this podcast. So it does get better. What you are doing by trying to sit with people saying kind things to you and trying to accept people saying kind things to you and trying to accept relationships where people respect your boundaries you are rewiring your brain.

Alyssa Scolari [22:03]:

Your brain is forming new neural pathways all the time through this process called myelination and, I believe I said that correctly, if I didn't someone correct me, but I believe the process is called myelination. Where your brain is forming these new neural pathways. And the more we allow ourselves to be around people who shower us with love and affection, unconditional love, I should say, and kindness, the more our brain is rewiring itself. So that now when it receives that information, when it gets that input, it goes, "Oh, we know what this is. This actually, isn't a threat. This is good stuff. So we're going to file this away as a really good moment and not a moment to freak out and panic." So I really hope that makes sense. And unfortunately the process of rewiring your brain it takes a long time.

Alyssa Scolari [23:09]:

You know, the great news is that it can be done it. I am living proof that it can be done. The brain is neuroplasticity, right? That means that the brain is constantly changing and evolving. So in the same way that your brain learned that only boundary crossing and abuse and gas lighting was safe, that's the same way in which we can learn that unconditional love and affection and genuine compliments are safe. It takes time and it takes practice. So what does that look like? Right. It's nice to talk about that in theory, right? "Oh yeah. Okay, great. My brain needs to rewire itself, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." But what are some things we can do to work on that? Because it takes work, right? It's not just something we're going to wake up one day and go, "Oh God, look. I can accept these compliments now and I can accept healing. And I can accept that. I'm getting a little bit better."

Alyssa Scolari [24:12]:

Could be because it's not just, and I should say this, I should have said this from the beginning, but it's not just compliments, right? It's the healing process. It's anything positive in our lives, right? It's healing when we're getting better. When normally a triggering situation would've made us self destruct or self harm or use our eating disorders. And then in this instance, we didn't, and we overcame this triggering situation without self-harming, all of that, right? Any kind of steps towards healing, healing your brain, healing your nervous system, healing your relationships, and your social life. All of it can be difficult. So what are some things that we can do when we notice that we are starting to have better people in our life, or when we notice that we're starting to not self destruct, when time get tough, what can we do?

Alyssa Scolari [25:09]:

Here are some things that I did. So one of the things that a lot of DBT skills, which I'm sure many of you may be familiar with, I know that I've talked about them before on the podcast. So DBT stands for Dialectical Behavior Therapy and DBT is really wonderful for like distressed tolerance and has really effective coping skills. And honestly, I hate the word coping skills because I think it's just so hard to use coping skills when you're triggered. And it's so hard to find coping skills that are actually good and effective, but I can say, I promise you, DBT skills are where it's at and go a really long way in helping to sit with this kind of stuff. So DBT skills are meant for like, well, they're not meant just for self harm, but they definitely are used in self harm.

Alyssa Scolari [26:08]:

And that's really what this process is, is you're having a really great healing experience or a really great interaction with somebody and your brain is perceiving that as a threat and therefore self-destructing. So for me, I find that what helps is sitting with it and trying to talk through what exactly is happening inside of my brain and why I'm perceiving this as such a threat. And sometimes I can't, right? Sometimes that like good interaction is way too much for me. And that's when I have to do other stuff, which is like, "Okay, I'm going to sit with this, but I'm also going to go take a bath." Or, "I'm also going to go take a walk." Or sometimes what we need to do is distract. And that can be key.

Alyssa Scolari [27:05]:

A lot of times, that's what I need to do. And the thing for me is as much as I want to distract, I don't want to forget about it because it really is special to me when somebody is kind to me. Or when I have a really good interaction with somebody it's very, very special to me. So while my system might not be able to tolerate it in that moment, I very much want to come back to it. So what I have found most helpful is I will write it down. Whether I keep like a note in my phone, or if it's a text message, I'll take a screenshot and then I will immediately distract it with somebody else or with something else or somebody, right? I'll talk to my husband or I'll be playing with the dogs, or I will, a really big fan of Epsom salt baths. Or we'll just go to the gym. Or we'll kind of go read emails if I'm in the middle of a work today.

Alyssa Scolari [28:02]:

But writing it down really how helps me to be able to like put it someplace and then kind of move on with my day. So it's like, "Okay, my system can't tolerate this right now. So I'm going to distract. I'm going to do something that's going to calm my nervous system." Whatever that might be. Also another big one making a hot cup of tea. Ugh. So soothing to me. So do things to soothe your nervous system, if you can't tolerate it.

Alyssa Scolari [28:29]:

And I know that that sounds kind of silly, right? Like why should I have to try to calm my nervous system or use coping skills because I received a compliment? But again, it goes back to the way your brain is wired, which as a result of trauma, your brain is wired so that you're used to being shit on. But when somebody is actually respectful, your brain's like, "Uh oh, what is this?" Right? It really should be the opposite in folks without a history of trauma they're used to people respecting them. And then when somebody is disrespectful, then they're nervous system gets dysregulated and their brain is like, "Rut oh, this is a threat."

Alyssa Scolari [29:10]:

So sitting with those feelings, trying to work them through, going through DBT skills, I won't go through all of them. I think that a lot of sensory stuff is really helpful for me. Whether it's cold water, whether it's, like I said, a hot cup of tea, whether it's a massage, an infrared sauna, I'm a very sensory oriented person. So you can Google DBT coping skills and you can find a list of skills. And again, I know that that might sound like a lot of work, but I am telling you it is so, so worth it.

Alyssa Scolari [29:47]:

And over time, as you continue to be able to incorporate this new information into your body and into your brain, this new information that tells you, "Oh, hey, maybe I am not a horrible human being after all. Maybe I'm just a person who had terrible things happen to them." It will get easier and easier to accept wonderful interactions. And it will be easier and easier to accept your healing. And you will find yourself craving healing and you will find yourself feeling worthy and deserving of healing.

Alyssa Scolari [30:28]:

So I hope that that helps spread some awareness and insight as to why it is so hard for people to take a compliment or for people to have a genuinely a good interaction with other people in this world. Why we self sabotage with our healing sometimes because it's really difficult, right? The trauma is hard, but the healing is hard too. So I know that I'm not alone in this, as I said earlier, and you are not alone in it either. It's really difficult, but you can get there and you will get there.

Alyssa Scolari [31:07]:

So with that said, I hope that everybody has a wonderful week. Remember again, I am going live on Instagram this Thursday at 8:00 PM. Eastern time again, that is this Thursday, October 7th. My Instagram handle is lightaftertrauma. Be sure to go check that out as there is lots of great stuff on that page now. We're really rolling out the content and I am holding you all in the light. My husband has brought home some Rita's water ice. So I am going to go chill out with him, have some Rita's and enjoy my Sunday night. Wishing you all the best. Take great care.

Alyssa Scolari [31:47]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram. We are @lightaftertrauma and on Twitter. It is @lightafterpod. Lastly, please head over to patreon.com/lightafter trauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's paton.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you. And we appreciate your support.

We were not meant to live our lives by simply going through the motions. Unfortunately, far too many people go through their days feeling unsettled and unhappy with their circumstances. Donna Bond is no stranger to this feeling. Transforming herself from a marketing executive to now a life and spiritual coach, Donna shares her powerful story of her refusal to accept anything less than the best that life has to give.

Donna's website

Denise's website

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hey. What's up everybody? How's it going? Welcome back to another episode. I'm really excited about the next couple months as we really dive into this fall season because I've got some awesome content lined up. I am so excited. As a quick little reminder, I just want to ask, if you haven't done so already and you are enjoying what you are hearing on the podcast, please head on over to wherever you like to listen and leave a review and rating for the podcast. That does wonders in terms of trying to spread awareness for the podcast and to garner more support for the podcast. I love doing this. I want to continue doing it us. And one of the big ways in which I will be able to continue to do this is through your help and your support. So please leave a review. We also have a Patreon, if you are able to support that, that would be incredible so that we can have even more content. And you can find that Patreon either in the show notes or you can go to the website, which is lightaftertrauma.com and you will have everything you need there.

So with that said, I will dive right into who our guest speaker is today. We have got the lovely Donna Bond and Donna is a spiritual advisor, a business and life coach and the author of Original Wisdom: Harness The Power of the Authentic You. Donna is supporting individual transformation of consciousness and she assists clients across the globe and she helps them to evolve to new heights of meaningful success, personal growth and fulfillment and spiritual aliveness using the principles and practices of spiritual psychology. And I think it's really important to note that Donna has a master's degree in spiritual psychology, which truthfully, I'm not very familiar with at all. So I'm really looking forward to diving in and finding out what that is all about because I didn't even know getting a master's degree in spiritual psych was an option. So we are going to find out all the answers to those questions Tuesday with Donna. So hi Donna. Welcome to the podcast.

Donna Bond [02:46]:

Hi Alyssa. Thank you for having me. So glad to be here.

Alyssa Scolari [02:50]:

So glad to be here too. I am just for the listeners. I am looking at such a dreamy background. We've got Donna's book in the background and then are those pink roses?

Donna Bond [03:04]:

Those are pink roses.

Alyssa Scolari [03:06]:

Are they real?

Donna Bond [03:07]:

Yes, they are real. I get roses every week as a gift to myself and as a gift to my clients and I just love the energy that they hold and the fragrance that they emit and they remind me to be soft and go with the flow and yeah, I love them. I love them.

Alyssa Scolari [03:31]:

Yes, I'm loving them as I'm seeing in the background. And they really do radiate just serenity. My eye keeps drifting over to them and I'm like oh, they're so dreamy. Okay. So that was our rose corner. If you don't have roses, get some in your home. I apparently need to go out after this and buy some roses. So welcome. And I wanted to start out by asking you one of the things that I was saying right off the bat in the introduction is you have a master's degree in spiritual psychology?

Donna Bond [04:06]:

Yeah. With an emphasis in consciousness, health and healing from the University of Santa Monica.

Alyssa Scolari [04:15]:

So I actually did... I wasn't even aware that you could get a master's degree in spiritual psychology. Are those programs few and far between or is that something I've just completely missed the mark on?

Donna Bond [04:30]:

Well, the University of Santa Monica was delivering this master's for about 35 years. Believe it or not.

Alyssa Scolari [04:40]:

Wow.

Donna Bond [04:40]:

Yeah. And they actually are no longer delivering the actual master's program, but they have re-imagined their offering into something called soul centered living, which is terrific because it really makes the program available to a wider audience. You don't have to have any prerequisites or credentials to participate in the program. And the study of the program is you, right? You're the topic, you're the homework. It's a journey into yourself. And a lot of the people who attend the program don't go on to work in the field. Many of the graduates do. I have found my way into transformational coaching as a result of the program, but more often than not, people who participate in that program, they just show up in their life in a really different way.

Alyssa Scolari [05:49]:

Yeah. I love hearing you say that because that's everything that I would imagine that master's degree would be, is a deep dive into you essentially.

Donna Bond [06:00]:

Yeah. Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [06:02]:

Oh, man. I might be going back for another master's degree. That sounds phenomenal.

Donna Bond [06:08]:

Well, the beauty, I know you're in the Northeastern part of the world, the beauty of what they're doing now is they've taken the entire thing online, which it's certainly been amazing to sit in a room with nearly 200 people and have the depth of the experiences that we've all shared together. And being online is really cool because doctors who want to marry whole neck are incredible teachers. They are a spiritual masters of our time and being able to be face-to-face with them on Zoom all up close and personal is pretty magical and pretty special. So yeah, it's a miracle really that anyone around the globe now can do this, but truthfully, when I was there, people would come from Dubai for the weekend.

Alyssa Scolari [07:12]:

Wow.

Donna Bond [07:14]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [07:15]:

That is, oh, that's incredible. Now can you tell me how... So, can you give me a little bit of backstory on how you made that decision to go for your master's in spiritual psychology? Because as I understand it, you were doing something completely... You were on a completely different track in your life when things seemingly took a complete 180 for you.

Donna Bond [07:39]:

Yes. So I was in the world of hospitality for 28 years. I was a marketing executive working for the Ritz-Carlton at the time. And it all looked really good on the surface, Alyssa. It all looked really good on the surface, but deep down, I was really unhappy and I didn't know it at the time, but I was developing a frozen shoulder, which was like this gorgeous, outward manifestation where I was in my life because I knew I wasn't happy deep down, but I wasn't doing anything about it. Right? So this outward manifestation of stuckness showed up in a really big and prominent way. And I have always been a spiritual seeker. If you saw my office, you'd see hundreds of books here. I've read it all. I love it all.

And so I had gone to see a psychic and literally crying to this psychic like I've got to find my purpose in life and the whole sob story. And she said to me, Donna, they're spelling it out for me. Spiritual psychology. And I said what in the hell is spiritual psychology?

Alyssa Scolari [07:39]:

What?

Donna Bond [09:01]:

Yes, literally. So she says, "Oh, there's three universities that teach a program in this." And one of them is the Center for Integral Studies, which is up in Northern California. She said there's also Sophia University, which is also, I think, based in Northern California. Now I think they have a campus in Costa Mesa. And she never got to tell me the name of the third university. So I went home, of course, and consulted the real Oracle. I Googled it.

Alyssa Scolari [09:37]:

Of course.

Donna Bond [09:40]:

And very quickly, right? And very quickly found my way to the University of Santa Monica. And I worked with this amazing admissions counselor. And it's so funny to think back, and it's not funny, but it's just incredible to think back at where my mindset was at that time in my life, how I saw the world at that time in my life, which was very practical and logical and really through a completely different lens. And I have this very long exchange with this admissions counselor trying to get every question answered and taking on what I was perceiving as being a burden of a master's program while I'm working a 60-hour a week job in this really intense high pressure corporate environment. And she finally said to me, "Hey Donna, why don't we do this, just for one week and see." And those were such magical words, right? It's like that, when I think about it, time stopped in that moment as I was being invited into making such an important decision in my life. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [11:06]:

Yeah. Right? That one weekend. And it's that feeling and I know so well and I can see all of the emotion in your face, but I know the listeners can't see this, but I can see it and I resonate so deeply with that feeling of like it's almost like it hits you and you're like oh, this is it. Is that like along the lines of what you were feeling?

Donna Bond [11:35]:

Yes and no. Truthfully at that time in my life, there was not one bone in this body. There is not one cell in this membrane that had a belief system, that there was anything else that could be possible for me in my life other than what I had. And where I had already achieved the status and the success that I had grown over nearly almost 30 years. It was like oh, I was earning a certain level of income and I had a certain level of status and a certain level of respect and prestige that I had earned coming up through the ranks in my career. And there was nothing in this body that thought that that would be possible to recreate a whole another career in my life at the age of 45, which was when this all started. So there was a whole, there was this call to do this, but truthfully I did not know why. I did not know. I did not know why there was nothing logical about it.

Alyssa Scolari [12:49]:

So it's almost like for the first 45 years of your life, you were walking around with a very myopic view on what your world was and nothing, you couldn't see beyond. You had essentially blinders to other possibilities in your world. And I really appreciate the fact that you are sharing this happened when I was 45 years old because I think that there are so many people out there. And I know that there are people who are listening that get to a point in their lives, I think much like you're describing where they're like well, here I am. This is my life. I can't see any other possibilities. Right?

I've been working as a nurse for the last 20 years and this is what it is. And deep down, right, they're burying feelings of but there's more. There has to be more than this. And of course it comes out in physical ways. Right? And a lot of times what we do is we go oh, I'm getting old. I got a frozen shoulder. Yup. That's me. Right? I'm getting old. Instead of saying, right, what is my body telling me? So I love that. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I didn't mean to interrupt, so continue. You can go on but I loved so much in what you just said that I'm like yes, it's so important for you to be sharing this because it's never too late.

Donna Bond [14:22]:

It's never too late. And I'm 53 now and my new career is taking off. Right? It's launching. I am having more fun than I have ever had in my life. And it's been a journey. So I enrolled myself in this program and ignored my frozen shoulder for the better part of a year until I quite literally couldn't lift my arm. And when I finally reconciled with what was going on with my shoulder and decided to actually address it, I had an experience where I was, I have to call it divine intervention because there's really no other way to call it. But I was on my way to the Ritz-Carlton Global Leadership Conference. I was on an airplane. My shoulder was stuck. I mean, it was in so much pain, visibly swollen from the neglect. And I'm going to a conference where I'm going to drink too much and I'm not going to sleep and I'm going to abuse my body even further.

Alyssa Scolari [15:31]:

Right.

Donna Bond [15:31]:

And I was reading a book called Finding Your Element by Ken Robinson. And I was really excited about this book because I've been looking for my element my whole life.

Alyssa Scolari [15:46]:

Yeah. That's the very thing you've been searching for, right?

Donna Bond [15:52]:

And I'm reading and he's talking about how we play it safe. And he's using all these metaphors and these analogies and he uses Mark Twain's metaphor, "20 years from now, you're going to be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than you by the things that you did do." So sail away from the safe harbor, throw off the battle lines, explore, dream, discover. I think I just twisted that around, but you get my drift. And so as I'm reading this, all of a sudden, I feel like there's this emotion that is bubbling up inside of me. And then there's another line that says "What lies behind us and what lie before us are tiny matters compared to what lie within us." And that's a Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Alyssa Scolari [16:40]:

One of my favorites.

Donna Bond [16:41]:

But now, I feel like this emotion has moved its way up into my chest. And then I get to the clincher, this little eight liner that is by the poet Elizabeth Appell called Risk. That poem is often attributed to Anais Nin, but she didn't actually write it. And then the day came when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. And when I read that, Alyssa, my shoulder was the bud. My shoulder was that bud. And I just had this out of body experience as I was on this airplane suddenly having complete and utter clarity that I needed to leave my job.

At this point still, there's not one bone in my body that thinks I'm going to be a coach, that even... This is not anywhere in my spirit, it's not in my radar, it's not in my consciousness. But I'm going to quit my job. And I just get this dose of clarity around this. And even though I don't have a clue or a plan, I am clear that this is what needs to happen. And so I go to this conference and an important part of the story that I didn't mention earlier was that as I'm evolving in this program, in spiritual psychology, I'm doing a lot of exploring of my consciousness and sort of testing out the laws of the universe. And I was doing an experiment where I was asking the universe to bring me an apple. And right before I left on this trip, I had sort of demanded the universe bring me an apple. Very random, no attachment to this whatsoever. I couldn't care less whether this happens or it doesn't happen.

Alyssa Scolari [18:45]:

Almost like you were testing the waters a little bit?

Donna Bond [18:47]:

Yes. Yes. So I had thrown this out there, right? So I had this experience on the plane, go through this conference. It's the very last night of this conference. And my name was called to the stage where I am the recipient of the Western Regional Marketing Achievement Award for the third consecutive year in a row. And as I'm walking back to my table with this award in my hand, I'm even more grounded in my knowing that I'm out. I'm done. I've had an amazing career. I'm so proud of all that I've done and all of the gifts that this has given me and even though I have no idea what's next, I know I'm done. I'm done here. Well, I sit down at my place setting and served before me is dessert.

And it is this incredibly elaborate apple dessert with apple confit and green apple sorbet. And apple this and apple that. And because it was with the Ritz-Carlton, they don't miss a beat, there was a menu card. So there was no mistaking what this was that had just been set before me because the menu card is now describing in great detail this apple dessert. And so I sat there at that table and just let the tears roll down my face as I became aware in that moment of the part of me that is so much greater than anything that I have given myself credit for. Right? Than any of my belief systems or upbringing or conditioning or patterning that there is this other part of me that is absolutely indefinitely connected to the infinite universe and the intelligence that is everywhere. And it was like I collided with that. And it was fantastic.

Alyssa Scolari [21:07]:

I'm sure-

Donna Bond [21:09]:

And it changed everything.

Alyssa Scolari [21:09]:

... that in itself felt like an outer body experience.

Donna Bond [21:12]:

Without question. Without question.

Alyssa Scolari [21:14]:

I mean, I have head to toe chills. When we're recording this, it's like the hottest day that we've had so far in summer over here in Pennsylvania. But I am covered in goosebumps from head to toe because that, it's beautiful. I don't have any other words that can do it justice. It's just, you sought out the universe and the universe said hey, I'm opening my arms to you. And I love that. So did you end up quitting your job?

Donna Bond [21:47]:

I ended up quitting my job. Yes. That happened in March. I actually resigned. Well, I actually ended up going out on a medical leave of absence and having shoulder surgery and through my healing journey with my shoulder, I got clear about well, what am I going to do next? Because I needed to earn an income, right? That was a piece of it for me. So I decided to become a marketing consultant. And I thought I would pitch the Ritz-Carlton on hiring me to train my replacement to take my role as the director of sales and marketing there. So I ended up resigning in October of 2014 and I worked as a marketing consultant for about a year and a half. And still there was nothing in me that really believed that I was going to be sitting in these sacred, intimate conversations one on one with people being given a sacred opportunity to help them solve problems in their life and live into their next level of potential. But the universe kind of tricked me into it. And that's true.

Alyssa Scolari [23:16]:

Yeah. So it's almost... Right. So it's almost like you had no idea where all of this was taking you. You just knew it was time to change, but you were going with it, right? You were surrendering to wherever it was that you were being led to.

Donna Bond [23:34]:

Yes. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [23:36]:

Which is a hard thing to do. Let's not gloss over that because just being able to surrender itself, it's very hard to do.

Donna Bond [23:46]:

It's really hard. And then, I think first of all, I guess I have to say that I could not have done this without the support that I had through this master's program at the University of Santa Monica. And really being wrapped in this container of not only loving, but this belief in me when I couldn't believe in myself. Right? There was like this template that was being held for what was possible. And that's why I love coaching so much. Right? Is because we get that partnership and you've got a partner who is believing in you when all else fails.

Alyssa Scolari [24:40]:

Yes, yes.

Donna Bond [24:43]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [24:43]:

I mean, I actually have a coach that I work with and that's exactly what it is. It's at the end of the day knowing there's somebody there who's still going to wrap you in safety and comfort and support along this journey.

Donna Bond [25:01]:

Yeah. [crosstalk 00:25:02] so there's a lot of surrender They are. They are. And I definitely went through an undoing because my whole life was about my job and who I was at my job and who I was was my job. So there was a lot of identity crisis. There was a lot of ego death, right? Of just unraveling all of that. And this all happened within the context of my marriage and, which is still alive and healthy and beautiful and supportive and all of those amazing things, which is whole other story and a whole other interview. Truly because that's a whole other book.

Alyssa Scolari [25:53]:

Yes.

Donna Bond [25:55]:

I said yes to one thing at a time. And I guess for the people who are listening, that's a really helpful way when we're being asked to surrender. It's like you don't have to surrender to everything all at once, you just have to surrender what's in front of you right now. And that is basically what I did. It's like I took one little step out of my comfort zone. I took one little step in the direction of kind of where I wanted to go and then I let the universe fill in the blanks. And once I took that one little step, then the next step got revealed. The next step didn't get revealed till I was willing to take that first step. Right? So there's this give and take with the universe that I think is so important that we can't opt out. Right? We got to stay in the game. We have to participate in our own forward motion. We can make a move and then the universe is going to meet us there and we can make another move and the universe is going to meet us there. But the universe isn't going to meet us until make the first.

Alyssa Scolari [27:15]:

Yes. It's almost a mutual respect. Right? It's a mutual trust that's forming. I think the way you're describing it, it's very, very beautiful and more accurate than what I've seen it described. Or as I think a lot of people think that it's like well, if I ask for it, it's all mine. Right? And that's where I think things like manifestation sort of get taken... They take off, right? People take them to unrealistic heights because it doesn't work like that. Right? You don't sit down and write on a piece of paper I want a Mercedes Benz and a $6 million home and a $58 million yacht.

Donna Bond [27:57]:

And then you go sit on the couch.

Alyssa Scolari [27:59]:

Yes. Yes, exactly. So the way you're describing it as is very, very beautiful.

Donna Bond [28:08]:

Thank you. Yeah. So that's what I did. It was one step at a time. And I was in the, my master's is in spiritual psychology with an emphasis in consciousness, health and healing. And when I was going through the consciousness, health and healing part of the program, we had to do a service project that was like donating. I can't remember the number exactly. It's like 56 hours of our time in service. And I had come through a mentality where time is money. Right? You don't do anything unless you're getting paid for it. So this was a really big opening for me in what is service? What does service mean and what does it mean to have a service consciousness? Right? And I think people sometimes mix up the difference between service and servitude, right? We are making ourselves available to something and we're doing that from a place of wholeness, from a place of giving, but not from a place of depleting ourselves or betraying ourselves. Even that word comes word forward fo me.

Alyssa Scolari [29:31]:

Yes.

Donna Bond [29:32]:

So my service project that I had birthed in my mind was that I was going to assist women who had small businesses. Actually a lot of coaches and healers and facilitators, I was going to assist them with growing their business and teaching them a little bit about marketing and giving them some more self-confidence. And this was the idea that I had. And one afternoon sitting around a pool at the Ohio Valley and Spa, I was with one of my girlfriends who was also in this program with me. And she said, well, can I be your first person? Right? Can I be the first person that you give these service hours to? And I said absolutely. It would be my honor to support you. I would love that. Well, when I turned in this project to the University of Santa Monica, it got denied that my service project was not going to fulfill the requirement or what I needed to do for my master's.

However, I had already made this commitment, right, to this woman that I would assist her. And so I'm a woman of my word, right? I really operate with a good amount of integrity. So I basically said to myself, well, even though I had to now still find something else to meet this 56-hour requirement, I'm going to help her. I'm going to still help this woman. And that's where the magic happens. Because when I sat down with her and got myself out of the way, it opened myself to be a channel for the divine and the universe was working through me in a way that was extraordinary and magical and beautiful and loving and compassionate and accepting and extraordinary on all of these incredible levels. And that is how I was invited into gifts that I had that really were laying dormant within me. And I had to put myself into a position that maybe I wouldn't have normally put myself in to be able to discover those gifts.

Alyssa Scolari [32:12]:

Yeah. As you're sharing your story, I can't help but think to myself what a magical transformation. It's been eight years, right?

Donna Bond [32:22]:

Eight years.

Alyssa Scolari [32:23]:

What a magical transformation. Eight years, even though it may seem like a long time, it's so quick, especially for such a drastic change in essentially the way you view the world around you. It's like a rebirth. It's like being reborn and it's powerful. Eight years. Eight years.

Donna Bond [32:49]:

Well, it's so funny that you're saying this because yesterday I was speaking with somebody and we were talking about the significance of a seven-year cycle. And so I had hung out a shingle, right, as a marketing consultant initially upon resigning my position. And I did that for a year. And on June 30th, a year into that, I made the decision to become a full time professional coach. And that meant saying no to any marketing gigs that might be coming my way. And so I have just completed that seven year cycle of being a full-time professional coach. And just as a side note, because we love the universe and it's always inviting us to learn and grow, right after I made this commitment. Right? Like I'm a full time professional coach now. It's my one and only. That's what I'm doing. Didn't I get a call for a big fat job.

Alyssa Scolari [34:01]:

Oh, of course. Of course.

Donna Bond [34:01]:

In marketing. Big fat job.

Alyssa Scolari [34:04]:

Because you were universe being, if it weren't testing you. Of course.

Donna Bond [34:11]:

Yeah. So I said no and it was so ama... And listen, make no mistake, I needed the money. Let's be clear. But I said no and that was fuel for the universe to help me align with where I was. And it all started there.

Alyssa Scolari [34:40]:

It's incredible. I love hearing these things because it's like it gives me life because there's so much power to this. There's so much strength and right. Touching on, even just saying like make no mistake, I needed the money, right? And I also think that's something so many of us say. In fact, I found myself saying that last night, right? I am feeling at a place in my life where I feel very called to slow down and I'm getting signs like the universe was just hitting me over the head with signs that I need to slow down. And of course, I'm so good at finding all reasons to not slow down. And I also don't want to gloss over how difficult that is for so many people to go, yes, I need the money. Yes, I have a family to provide for. Yes, I need X. Yes, I can't do this because of X, Y, Z, whatever. To stop, to turn all that off and to just say no, no, because this doesn't feel right for me. That is incredible. I just give you all of the accolades for being able to do that.

Donna Bond [35:57]:

Ca I share something about what you're saying?

Alyssa Scolari [35:59]:

Please.

Donna Bond [36:00]:

Coming from somebody who had a regular direct deposit paycheck every two weeks, right, for 28 years, there was a lot of mindset shifts that really needed to take place as I became an entrepreneur and became responsible for generating my own income. I live in Southern California, right? It's not cheap here.

Alyssa Scolari [36:23]:

Right. Exactly.

Donna Bond [36:24]:

So one of the things that I became aware of and one of the things that is really in my teachings, in my book, Original Wisdom: Harness The Power of The Authentic You is about energy and that energy of doing, the energy of pushing and the striving and the going and the foreseen and the doing, that is an energy of contraction. It's an energy of compression. It's an energy to heavier denser energy. And when we're in that energy, it's harder to let things come into our experience.

So it became very present in my consciousness that when I am feeling the energy of lightness and freedom and joy, that is an energy that is more open and more expansive. That is an energy of allowing, that is energy of receiving. And so I began to do this experiment with myself where I would take a Tuesday, right? In the middle of the week, in the middle of the month, I would take a Tuesday and I would just go play. It didn't matter. Let's be clear. I have 101,000 things at my desk that could and should be done, but I would take a Tuesday and I'd find a girlfriend and I would go goof off. And I would do this intentionally because I wanted to shift the energy.

And in so doing invariably, I would get a call on my way home from somebody who's looking to start a six month coaching journey or somebody who was inviting me onto their podcast or somebody who needs me to come into their corporation and consult. It never fails.

Alyssa Scolari [38:29]:

Never fails. You're so right.

Donna Bond [38:33]:

So I just, I love to break ourselves out of the monotony of physical world reality and how we get trapped in our own BS. Right? There is always a different way and we have the power and the choice to invite ourselves into that.

Alyssa Scolari [38:58]:

Yes we do. And it's not easy, but it's so worth it. I think the other question that I wanted to ask you and I'll ask you this before I also ask where folks can find you and things like that, but is it safe to say that this process can also be a bit, not cyclical, but I don't find, at least for me, and maybe it's different for you that it's as easy as once you enter into the path of letting the universe guide you and saying no and saying yes and doing what feels right and creating more space for more play, more positive energy, you still can get stuck. Because you've spent so many years of your life doing things one way and then sometimes it can be tough. Right? Is that the case for you where you do have moments where you're like, oh, I can sense there's some bad energy. I need to kind of get things right again. It's not just sort of like, well, everything's rainbows and puppies and butterflies now that I've made this decision, right?

Donna Bond [40:14]:

Alyssa, are you talking about being human?

Alyssa Scolari [40:19]:

I might be. I might be.

Donna Bond [40:21]:

Yeah. Well, I think that's what we're talking about. And yes, right? So here's how I see it. We want everything to be linear because that's how we think the world works in our logical left brain-

Alyssa Scolari [40:38]:

Right. That's what makes sense in our brains.

Donna Bond [40:39]:

... and our [crosstalk 00:40:39] Right?

Alyssa Scolari [40:38]:

Yes.

Donna Bond [40:38]:

We want everything to have a clear beginning and a clear end. We want us to go in a straight line. We want to know all the steps and the return on the investment and how long it's going to take. But the truth is we live in an ever expanding universe and I believe that all growth and transformation and all of the forward motion of this ever expanding universe happens in a spiral. So every time we make a lap around the spiral, we go out a little bit more and we go up a little bit more. Right? So then we take another lap and we go out and we go up. Then we make another lap and we go out and we go up.

And what happens, where I see it, is there's like little sticky patches along the spiral. Right? And then you just made another lap. And you've been here before, you might have a little bit of a different perspective and there's still something for you to learn.

Alyssa Scolari [41:47]:

Yes.

Donna Bond [41:48]:

So it's like you have a choice right there to open yourself and to be able to see what is your [inaudible 00:41:58] What can I learn from this? How might I grow from this experience, person, circumstance, trauma, right? Whatever it is. Or are we going to shut ourselves down, lock in, close up. Right? And we hop into that story as well. So I think what you're saying is very, very real. I know that as long as we are in these human bodies, on this human adventure, we will continue to have those sticky places along the spiral. And transformation is about changing our relationship to something. And so if we can begin to change our relationship to how we relate to ourselves and how we relate to the world when we're going through a difficult period, that right there can bestow many gifts.

Alyssa Scolari [43:08]:

Yeah. You're absolutely right. And I also have to say as somebody who's a very visual person, I am deeply appreciative of that visual that you provided because that is exactly what I was trying to say and that is exactly how it feels. And I also think that it's very, very important to point that out because it really is a lifelong process.

Donna Bond [43:33]:

It is a lifelong process.

Alyssa Scolari [43:37]:

So now, what we heard from you today, is that just a snippet of all the things that can be found in your book because your book, it's a memoir, correct?

Donna Bond [43:49]:

Yes. It's a teaching memoir.

Alyssa Scolari [43:51]:

Well, yes. And because it also has a lot of nuggets of wisdom in there about ways to move through this process and for people to be able to start their own journey.

Donna Bond [44:05]:

It is definitely my journey and I did not set out to write a book. I actually set out to create a workshop, which I did. And over time, I wanted more stories that could support the teaching point that I was trying to make in my workshop. And before I realized it, I had so many stories that what I was describing literally was all of my experiences on my own transformational journey. And a little bit of rearranging with how the workshop went and it was suddenly like, oh, this is like my whole journey from beginning to end and how it all happened. And so in each chapter, there's all sorts of fun, synchronistic serendipity. I don't really believe in coincidence. I believe that everything happens for a reason. And that, of course there is a lot of deeper meaning to our life and our existence.

And so I've got all of those fun nuggets in there. And I offer an opportunity for transformation at the end of every chapter. So this is really inviting the reader to have their own experience with whatever the teaching point is. And so I give you the chance to engage with life, right? To take what you've learned and really apply it in your life in some way because that's really the only way that we learn. And that's the beauty of the University of Santa Monica and the programs that they deliver there is they are experiential learning. And this masters is not just something that wound up in my head, right? It's in my body. I embody this work because I lived it, because I took all of what they were teaching and I applied it to my real life in a very, very real way. And I got the feedback from life, from the universe.

So I offer these opportunities for transformation, as well as something that I call a sacred truth activation. And these sacred truth activations are a series of affirmations designed to invigorate your spirit, to really call upon that authentic power that you have inside of you that is your original wisdom, right? My definition of original wisdom is the inherent intelligence in all beings that is rooted in unconditional love.

Alyssa Scolari [46:59]:

I love that. That definition itself feels like a warm hug to me.

Donna Bond [47:04]:

Yeah. Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [47:07]:

I love it. I love it. So if people would like to work with you, purchase your book, where can people find you and where's the best place to be able to purchase your book? Is it just on Amazon or is it in other bookstores as well?

Donna Bond [47:23]:

It's everywhere.

Alyssa Scolari [47:24]:

[crosstalk 00:47:24] supporting small businesses.

Donna Bond [47:26]:

Yeah, thank you. It's everywhere. And you can go to donnabond.com/podcast and I have a gift for your listeners, four ways to get unstuck, which actually talks about the spiral and sort of what happens at each of the stages on the spiral. So if that is of interest and if they would like a signed copy of my book, they can get it there. And of course, it's available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and all of the book places in the world.

Alyssa Scolari [48:01]:

Oh, that was fantastic. Thank you so much. So to the listeners, all of this will be included in the show notes. And I think the last thing I want to say is I know that you have just said that there are no coin... Right? You don't believe in coincidences and I do not either. And I have found that as somebody who... I started this podcast a year ago and this podcast is very much about... It's about interviewing other people and it's about learning about trauma and healing and all of the things that go along with that.

But I'm also very, very open and transparent with the listeners and folks about my own journey to recovery from complex PTSD and an eating disorder. And looking at the head space I was in last night, which was not a very good one to say the least, I am always so surprised that when I hop on for an interview, that topic and the conversation always sort of takes me exactly where I need to be for a shift, for a message, for whatever needs to happen within myself. I'm always learning that through conversations exactly like the one that you and I are having. So thank you so much for-

Donna Bond [48:01]:

Me too.

Alyssa Scolari [49:26]:

... teaching. Yeah.

Donna Bond [49:27]:

Me too. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [49:29]:

It's a beautiful thing. It really is. So I'm really, really grateful for your vulnerability, for the realism that you share and what this process and journey is like because it's not all rainbows and puppies and butterflies. It's scary and it's beautiful and terrifying all at the same time. And still even knowing all of that, once you've started the journey, you can never go back and you wouldn't have it any other way. So thank you so much. To the listeners, again, you will find everything you need in the show notes to learn more about Donna, to check her out, to read her book. I really appreciate your time today.

Donna Bond [50:21]:

Alyssa, thank you. It's really been my honor to be here with you. Thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [50:26]:

Thanks for listening everyone. For more information, please head over to lightaftertrauma.com or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we are @LightAfterTrauma and on Twitter, it is @LightAfterPod. Lastly, please head over to at patreon.com/lightaftertrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So please head on over. Again, that's patreon.com/lightaftertrauma. Thank you and we appreciate your support.

[singing]

On this week's episode we welcome back our good friend, Denise R. Wolf MA, ATR-BC, ATCS, LPC along with our brand new guest, author Lynn Langan. Alyssa, Denise, and Lynn are passionate about helping adolescents and use this episode to dive into the struggles and unique challenges facing our youth today. In Lynn Langan's brand new book, Duke & The Lonely Boy, she takes readers inside the world of our adolescents and emphasizes the importance of making kids feel seen and heard. Whether you are an adolescent, a young adult, a teacher, a therapist, or a parent, this discussion as well as Lynn's book will help you to better understand how to navigate the world of our adolescents.

Purchase Lynn's Book

Learn More About Denise Wolf

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:09]:

Happy, happy Tuesday. Welcome back to another fun episode of Light After Trauma. It kind of feels like an oxymoron, doesn't it, to be like, "Oh yeah, this is another fun episode for a trauma-focused podcast," but I hope that if y'all have learned anything from me by now, it's that I think that the recovery process and the trauma process just isn't really possible without some humor. I am a really big fan of humor therapy, which is not officially a thing, but it's my thing because I believe if we don't laugh about some things, we'll cry about everything. We have with us two special guests today. One of them is a very familiar face on the podcast. We have got Denise Wolf back with us today, which is so exciting. She has done I believe two episodes already at this point, so this is her third episode on the podcast. We just need her to keep coming back because she's amazing.

Denise has done some episodes. I think the one episode that she did with just me was on art therapy, and then the other one we did talking about law enforcement and the whole defunding the police versus backing the blue. So, definitely go and check out those episodes if you have not listened already, because Denise is really an incredible person and has a lot of awesome things to say. Plus, she's really funny as hell. I'm just going to reintroduce her in case she is new and you a new listener here on the podcast. Denise R. Wolf has so many letters after her last name, which just is a testament to how incredible she is. Denise R. Wolf is the Owner and Practitioner Therapist of Mangata Services as well as an adjunct faculty member at Drexel and Villanova Universities.

Denise is a Licensed Professional Counselor, as well as a Registered Board Certified and an Art Therapy Certified Supervisor through the Art Therapy Credentials Board. For over 20 years, Denise has been practicing as a therapist primarily treating adolescents and adults with histories of complex interpersonal trauma. She works as a consultant for many Philadelphia organizations, including the Philadelphia Art Museum, providing clinical supervision and programming related to trauma informed care. Denise has presented at city, state, national, and international conferences in the areas of trauma informed care, trauma and neuro biology, pedagogy, clinical supervision. She has several articles published in peer review journals, and has contributed chapters to Seminole texts in her clinical work.

Actually as I was reading that, I think you might have even done... Actually, I think the episode where we talked about art therapy with Denise, I think that one was a two person episode as well. We just love doing two person episodes with Denise, because yes, I'm pretty sure we had somebody else on that podcast as well. Regardless, go check those episodes out because they're awesome. Then I also want to highlight our other very special guest today, who is Lynn Langan. Lynn is brand new to the podcast, but I am really excited to have her on because we are talking all about adolescents, teenagers, whatever word you might have for them. I'm sure that some people have some choice words for teenagers, but I happen to absolutely love working with teenagers. As you heard, Denise with teenagers, I work with teenagers and adolescents, and kids that are young adults. That's really my wheelhouse.

Lynn Langan is an author who just had a book come out that we are really going to dive in today, because it's really all about kind of diving into the adolescent brain. Lynn lives in Pennsylvania, and her love for writing developed after she finally learned how to read in the fourth grade, after being diagnosed with a learning disability. She fell in love with the characters crafted by the wonderful Judy Blume, and found a great escape into the world of fiction where everything seemed to be possible from big problems to small. She went on to graduate from Kutztown University, with a BA in professional writing, and then spent three glorious years teaching at an at risk youth high school just outside of Philadelphia. There, she was inspired to write her young adult novel, which is After You Were Gone, which is available.

Her newest book is called Duke and the Lonely Boy, and that came out in August. That is published by Black Rose Writing. We are here today to talk about it. I cannot wait. Hello, Denise, Lynn. Welcome.

Lynn Langan [05:34]:

Hello.

Denise Wolf [05:34]:

Hello.

Lynn Langan [05:35]:

Thanks for having us.

Alyssa Scolari [05:37]:

I'm so happy you're here. I have to admit, I feel like I'm missing the party over there because you're both together recording this. I'm like I should be there. I should be over there with a glass of wine or something.

Lynn Langan [05:49]:

Absolutely.

Denise Wolf [05:51]:

[crosstalk 00:05:51].

Alyssa Scolari [05:54]:

I'm so glad you both are here. As I was telling the listeners, Denise, one of the many things that I think are just incredible about you is your versatility and your ability to just kick absolute ass in so many different realms in the mental health field, and I love it. We've gone in depth about art therapy. We've gone in depth about the legal system. And now here we are today turning it to adolescence, which is a topic we could talk about forever, and something that I think all three of us are very passionate about.

Thanks for coming back again.

Denise Wolf [06:34]:

Thanks so much for having me again.

Alyssa Scolari [06:37]:

Of course. It's such a pleasure. Lynn, it is such a pleasure to meet you. Talk to me about your journey to becoming a writer, because if I understand correctly, this isn't is your first book. You've had a book out before?

Lynn Langan [06:55]:

That is correct. Not published though. It's been for sale, but this is the first book that was sold for me. I went to college for writing, and then when you get out of college that's not really how you're going to make money apparently. I was doing newspapers and short story stuff, so probably when I was around 27 I was like, "You know what, I really want to write a book. I want to do this." So I spent a lot of time digging in and learning how to do this actually, because college can only teach you so much. But when you get out into the real world, you have to continue practicing and learning, and growing in your field of whatever you're doing.

SCBWI conferences, which is just a whole chapter of adolescent writers from probably picture books all the way up to 18 years old, so it's a whole bunch of authors. They're getting together and to these conferences, and learning, and figuring out how to write an entire book, and query it, and all the steps that go along with it. It's been an incredibly long and hard journey, but worth it. Definitely worth it.

Alyssa Scolari [08:12]:

Yeah, I think that's very important that you said that because the life of a writer is not an easy one.

Lynn Langan [08:18]:

No. No, it's not.

Alyssa Scolari [08:21]:

I think it's really important to shed light on that because I think a lot of people have an idea of what it looks like. "I want to be a writer. I want to be a writer," but then putting that into practice, in theory it seems like a life of luxury. I write whenever I want. I sip my coffee. Pinky up. As I type of the computer while the birds are chirping outside. It's like [crosstalk 00:08:46]-

Lynn Langan [08:45]:

No. And the words are so easy. They're right there and I'm just plucking them out of the air. That is absolutely not the case. It's a lot of discipline because you work a full-time job. There's no one yelling at you to go to the computer to write this book. The future is unknown if it ever see the light of day. That's kind of where I grew my peace from, was that I'm doing this thing because this thing, this art, is what makes me me. It's my joy and my happiness, even there's struggle along the way. If I wasn't doing it, then I don't think I'd be complete. It is a lot of discipline. It's a lot of just sitting down and looking at the blank computer screen back at me like, "Come on. Put some words down."

Alyssa Scolari [09:33]:

Any second now.

Lynn Langan [09:34]:

Any second now, this big idea's going to come to me. That's not true.

Alyssa Scolari [09:39]:

It's so tough. It's so tough.

Lynn Langan [09:42]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [09:43]:

My next question, and this is a question I have for both of you, tell me why the love for adolescence, because all three of us share a big passion for the kiddos in this world. Why? It doesn't matter whoever can go first, but I'm very curious as to well adolescents are such a passion. At least in my experience, I always knew that I wanted to work with kids. Everybody would tell me, even my professors in college would be like, "No, you don't. No, you don't. No, you don't." In grad school, "What do you want to do?" "I want to work with kids." "No, you don't." Everybody kept trying to talk me out of working with kids. It's very unpopular. So tell me for each of you why it's so important to you.

Denise Wolf [10:32]:

I'll start. Part of it too, Alyssa, like I was told the same thing, "You don't want to do that." Tell me I don't want something or I can't do something, and I am going to do it 1,000% times over and everything on fire in my path.

Alyssa Scolari [10:48]:

Yes. Yes.

Denise Wolf [10:48]:

That's part of it, but it's also a connection to adolescence and that inner 15 year old kid that still lives in my heart that says, "Fuck you. I can do this. Get out of my way." That's part of it, I'm oppositional, and that connects with adolescence. Part of it is that I had a troubled adolescence, you could say. I'll stop there. Some of it I feel like is not quite payback. I don't have the right word, but making repairs for some of the errors that I made along the way. Part of it is because I can. Because I can and because a lot of people can or don't want to. I guess there's a fourth part that adolescents are so exciting from a neuro developmental perspective. It is like the Fourth of July in their brains. It was such a great time of change and shifting, and possibilities.

Lynn Langan [11:46]:

Discovery.

Denise Wolf [11:46]:

And discovery, yeah. It's really exciting. For all of those reasons.

Lynn Langan [11:53]:

Yeah, and I would go into that also for all those things, and say that I want to be an advocate because I remember my youth not being taken seriously because we're young, and our voices don't matter. That's not true. We are young... Well, we are not now, but we were young and they are young, and they see things and make connections in ways that if you stop and listen to them it makes sense. We're missing some of that youthful view in the way they see the world. As we get older, I think we get more narrow in our views and also take less chances where when you're young you kind of live and learn by your mistakes. I want them to know that that's okay. It's exactly how you're supposed to learn. The adults that are walking around judging you or saying what you're doing is wrong or whatever, it's not. It's your time to grow into a person. I want to be there to foster that. Authentically, I want to make sure that's in my work that they have opinions that matter, and the way they see the world matters, and they have a place for that.

Alyssa Scolari [13:06]:

Yeah.

Lynn Langan [13:06]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [13:07]:

Absolutely. Have either of you seen the Twilight saga, the movies?

Lynn Langan [13:13]:

Yes.

Denise Wolf [13:14]:

Yes. [crosstalk 00:13:14].

Alyssa Scolari [13:15]:

I guess let's take it to the fourth one, Breaking Dawn Part Two.

Lynn Langan [13:21]:

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, part two.

Alyssa Scolari [13:23]:

I know, I'm going here, right?

Lynn Langan [13:25]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [13:26]:

Full disclosure, I just finished watching that series again last week so it's fresh on my mind. But, this is kind of how I see adolescents and this is what I love so much about them. Remember the part in Breaking Dawn Part Two where Bella becomes a vampire and everything in the world is new to her, and her senses are heightened, and she can smell things, and run at a pace she's never been able to run before, and her skin, she's in a different body, she has a thirst for things she never thirsted before. She just feels like all of these things, like sensory overload. I feel like that's what it can be like working with adolescents. The world is just new to them. They're in bodies that they're not super familiar with. Things are explosive and exciting.

Lynn Langan [14:23]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [14:24]:

I love it. I feel like that's what it's like to work with kids sometimes. That's what it's like to be an adolescent sometimes.

Lynn Langan [14:31]:

Absolutely.

Denise Wolf [14:31]:

Yep.

Lynn Langan [14:32]:

Yeah, you've got these thoughts and everything is brand new. Everything. Your world is so small. You don't realize how big the world is until you become an adult and you start living in it. The adolescent brain, the picture that they see is very tiny and then it makes the things that they're experiencing seem so heavy. That's another thing to work with the adolescents is cool, because you can be the person that says, "Calm down. You don't know what you're talking about." Or you could be the person that says, "Sit down. Let me talk to you. Let's talk about this. Let's have a real conversation about it." This isn't the end of the world. This is just the beginning.

Denise Wolf [15:09]:

Yep, and it feels gigantic and soul-crushing.

Lynn Langan [15:13]:

Right, because it is for you.

Denise Wolf [15:14]:

Right. Because your life is only yea long, and this is taking up such a big part of it.

Lynn Langan [15:19]:

Right, yeah.

Denise Wolf [15:20]:

Which is cool and exciting, and to be there and to validate it and celebrate it.

Lynn Langan [15:24]:

Right, absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [15:26]:

Yeah, to validate it and to celebrate it, especially because so many kids get shut down.

Denise Wolf [15:33]:

Oh, gosh.

Lynn Langan [15:33]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [15:35]:

The amount of times... Like I was saying before we started recording, the amount of times that adults say to children, "You don't know how easy you have it. What do you know? You're just a kid." I'm like I actually think they know a lot more than we know as adults.

Lynn Langan [15:57]:

Yes, absolutely.

Denise Wolf [15:59]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [16:00]:

They're smart as hell.

Lynn Langan [16:01]:

They're smart, yes. And they just need a platform for themselves to be able to... That's what's so critical too, because if that age if you have that one adult that's shoving you down and you're influenced by that, your whole trajectory of your life could be changed just by some adult making some offhanded comment to you. I see that a lot. I think we see that a lot too, probably all three of us, because everybody works with kids, or has worked with the kids. You have one person that doesn't validate, and then you get in your head and you can't put it down.

Alyssa Scolari [16:37]:

Yeah.

Lynn Langan [16:38]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [16:39]:

Absolutely. I'm sure we've been those kids. I know I for sure was that kid who really felt like... I felt like as a kid I was always too much. My emotions were always too big for somebody. It was always like "Calm down. Stop crying. Why are you crying about this? You have to get over it. You have to move on with your life." I see kids in my office who come in with those same big emotions, and those same big feelings, and I think about how they suffer so much less simply because another adult is able to say, "Aw man, of course you feel that way."

Lynn Langan [17:20]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [17:20]:

It makes all the difference, doesn't it?

Denise Wolf [17:23]:

Yeah.

Lynn Langan [17:23]:

It really does. "I see you." That's what you're saying, "I see you. You exist. Everything you feel exists. It's real. It's here." Don't bury that down because it's making other people feel uncomfortable it. I think a lot of kids get their voice shut off because of that. No one's validating them or they can crawl inside their head and just be quiet. [crosstalk 00:17:45]-

Alyssa Scolari [17:46]:

1,000%. [crosstalk 00:17:46] 1,000%.

Lynn Langan [17:48]:

Yeah, and it's sad. I don't want to see that for anybody. I think it's good to think of it in terms like that. It could just feel like you have a breakup with your boyfriend or girlfriend. Yes, as an adult you're like, "Get over it. You're going to get hurt 1,000 times." Well guess what, this is the first time I'm being hurt and everything you're saying to me is how I'm going to model my life from this point on. This is how I'm going to deal with things that come up in my life because you told me to calm down, or didn't see, or didn't hear me. I think that's good to give kids voices.

Denise Wolf [18:23]:

Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [18:24]:

Absolutely. It makes them feel human. I almost feel like we dehumanize kids, and we don't see them as having the same kind of complex feelings and emotions that adults have. There's always "I'm the adult and you're the kid. This doesn't concern you." It's like if we could shift that. Your kid is an independent human with independent thoughts and feelings, and viewpoints of the world. If we could shift from "You're just a kid. What the fuck do you know?" To "Hey, tell me how you view that," it would make such a big difference in the lives of adolescents I think.

Lynn Langan [19:16]:

Absolutely. When people say, "Oh, well you don't know how good you have it," I look at kids and I'm like, "Man, you don't know how bad you have it." Because you have to be plugged in to this social media, to this... You're always plugged in and you don't get a break from that ever. Ever. I look at my nieces and nephews and I'm just like, "What would it be like if you could just put that phone down?" I know you can't because you feel like you have to be involved in that, but it's just crazy. You don't ever have a safe spot. When we were kids, you can get away from school or all of that, and just go geek in your room and do whatever you want. But not these kids. They're just sitting there taking selfies 24/7 and feeling like they have to, and people are judging them for that, and they're not looking at what are the consequences of that? What does that really feel like to be plugged in 24/7 and never getting a break?

Denise Wolf [20:13]:

They don't know because they haven't had a different experience.

Lynn Langan [20:15]:

Right, yeah it's very disheartening when adults judge the kids. They're like, "Oh, you don't know what it's like. I walked up to school on a hill and back again on a hill." No, these kids are going through it. There's a lot of pressures on them. New things that they're coming against. There's just so much for them I feel.

Denise Wolf [20:37]:

Yep. I think part of the reason we collectively adopt, dismiss and minimize adolescents is because they don't want to remember their own eps because they're growing pains. Growing pains, they're emotional and physical. They shut them down, "Be quiet. Get over it. Calm down," like being on an airplane when there's a crying baby and somebody's like, "Shut that baby up." My response is, "Oh, you were born a full grown adult asshole? You were never a baby?" People want to forget or deny their adolescence.

Lynn Langan [21:14]:

Right, absolutely.

Denise Wolf [21:16]:

But we don't. That's why we're amazing.

Lynn Langan [21:18]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [21:20]:

No, that's right. That's why we're fucking amazing at what we do, because we understand the magic that lives in adolescence. I love it. I love it. Tell me, Lynn, where was the inspiration for this book? I'll let you answer that question before I drill you with five more questions.

Lynn Langan [21:47]:

The idea of we indirectly impact people versus directly impact people has always been fascinating to me, because Denise and I worked at Carson Valley Children's Aid, which is a residential facility for troubled youth. We had a lot of Philadelphian children who came out to our school that were bused in.

Alyssa Scolari [22:08]:

Is that how the two of you met?

Lynn Langan [22:09]:

Yes.

Denise Wolf [22:10]:

Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [22:10]:

That's awesome.

Lynn Langan [22:12]:

This one day the guidance counselor came out said, "Okay, I want you to give out a soft pretzel to a student that you think is deserving." We're teachers. We're like a million miles... You just take the ticket and you're like, okay whatever. So, I gave it to this student who was very short, very quiet, very closed off. She didn't like to talk at all. I walked up to her and I said, "Here you go." She started crying. I was like, "What's going on?" She was like, "I didn't think you knew who I was." I'm like, "I'm your teacher for a long time. Of course I know who you are." She was like, "I just didn't think you saw me." From that point on I was like, wow the littlest things that we do really do make a difference sometimes.

You don't know. You don't know what that thing is going to be. Then that kind of just fascinated me like how many other things have I done to people that changed their perspective or vice versa. That whole seed was planted in me that I wanted to write this book where you think you know, but you don't know. You don't know what's going on in that person's life. What does that really look like, and how would that really spawn out into a novel? How could I get that across? That's kind of where I started playing with Duke and the Lonely Boy, because they both have these ideas about each other, but they don't really know each other at all.

Alyssa Scolari [23:45]:

Yeah. Yeah, it seems like... Again, I'm still reading this, but from all that I've gathered from the book so far, it seems like that is the moral... One of the many morals of the story is that you truly just don't know. What you did, is you magically crafted two characters who couldn't be further apart from one another. Without giving too much away, can you say a little bit more about who Duke and the Lonely Boy are? I just love their story right from the get go.

Lynn Langan [24:19]:

Yeah. It seems stereotypical, but it's not, I promise. Duke is the popular boy, and he's the All-Star football player, and he's got a very bright future ahead of him, but he's struggling in math. So, something very simple. The coach gets him this tutor, Tommy, who is just this outcast, but not in the stereotypical form. He's just quiet and nobody really knows his existence in this school or the story. They meet up and that's how the story begins, but it's told obviously through two perspectives. The first half of the book you're really getting Tommy's perspective as the little person and his story of what's going on. You're seeing him through Duke's eyes as a teenager. I think it's unpacking that for Tommy.

Duke's got his own struggles going on, which Tommy kind of looks at like, "What's up? You can't do math, but you got everything else going for you." The story too jumps around in time, which kind of reminds me of therapy work, where it's not like you sit down with the client the first time and tell their entire history. You're working through their story kind of like event by event, and it's not sequential. So we as therapists have to be mindful that we don't make assumptions from go because I think for me one of the big takeaways is when you know, you know, and to remember that you don't. Duke and Tommy have these really complex stories, and have this sort of initial encounter where they think they know each other. Then throughout this jumping in time, back and forth in time and these crossovers of their interactions in their own personal stories, your perspective and understanding and empathy really shifts.

Alyssa Scolari [26:18]:

Yeah, absolutely. You know what also I love is that you're breaking this stereotype. If a high schooler were to pick up this book and read it, whether that high schooler is the football star in the school, the popular one, or more of the loner, you can still learn something. I love that this breaks the stereotype, because I think a lot of people feel like the kids who are loners are the only kids who have stuff going on. Like "Oh, they've got issues." I can't tell you how many times I have heard other kids be like, "Oh yeah, there's the loner. That's the kid that's going to shoot up the school," and say dumb shit like that that kids say.

But you als don't know how much is going on behind the football stars, the basketball stars, the most popular girl. I like that you break that stereotype as well.

Lynn Langan [27:24]:

I wanted the reader to be able to identify with real characters. These are not those heavy issues in there, but with... I'm not sure if [inaudible 00:27:36] that for you is the right [inaudible 00:27:38]. I feel like the reader deserves that.

Alyssa Scolari [27:42]:

That it's like there are heavy issues in there.

Lynn Langan [27:44]:

Yeah, that there's heavy [crosstalk 00:27:45].

Alyssa Scolari [27:45]:

Some of its tough.

Lynn Langan [27:46]:

Yeah, some of its tough, and it's real and maybe you could see yourself in some of these things. I like that Duke is the popular one, but he's growing so much in this story. He's trying to find his place. Just because you're popular doesn't mean you know your place. Duke constantly questions whether is this real, or if I don't keep doing things that these people are saying that I do then I'll lose everything. I do think that that's a struggle for the popular kids. If you could pick up that book as a popular kid and be like, "Yeah. Right, I have things too and I don't know what to do with these things. They're heavy and maybe I don't want to be in the box that I've suddenly found myself in. Maybe I want to go sit with the loner or the art students, or the music group," or whoever.

High school is very segregated in where you're going to be, so it's nice for the popular kid to be able to pick up that book and say, "Yeah, I do have things and I don't necessarily know what the hell I'm doing. I don't have it all. I just appear to have it all." Sometimes our appearances really plays with your head.

Denise Wolf [29:01]:

In a lot of ways, Tommy has more resilience than Duke because Tommy's endured a lot and in some ways that's given him a lot of strength.

Lynn Langan [29:12]:

Yeah, but he doesn't know he has it.

Denise Wolf [29:15]:

Right.

Lynn Langan [29:15]:

Yeah, that's his journey, is that he is authentic to himself, but he doesn't know how to get that out to the world because he's just been shut down by his life situations.

Denise Wolf [29:30]:

I'm thinking about The Breakfast Club. I'm like is this a modern day Breakfast Club? You know in the end when I think Jeb Nelson's narrating, he's like "In each one of us there's a cheerleader [crosstalk 00:29:40]-"

Lynn Langan [29:39]:

Oh yeah.

Denise Wolf [29:39]:

"And the football player."

Lynn Langan [29:42]:

Right.

Denise Wolf [29:43]:

Right, and they're dealing with other characters in the book. You meet Charlie, and Lexie, and I'm thinking there's a little bit... It's not like, oh the popular kid's going to read this and identify with Duke. These characters are so well developed and complex. They really speak I think collectively of the adolescent experience.

Lynn Langan [30:03]:

Yeah, and sometimes I find I read young adult books and they bring up something that's heavy, and then they leave it. They just leave it there-

Alyssa Scolari [30:14]:

Skirted away, yeah.

Lynn Langan [30:15]:

It's like, actually that's not what the real emotion of that is. Don't just put it in there because it's heavy. Don't brush over that. We're also, as authors, I think we have a moral code that we should say we're not going to breeze over these emotions because it's not going to sell books or it's not Hollywood enough. No. I think that's what it is. We have the duty as these authors that are writing to these young children to really be their users into the world and validate their feelings that they're feeling, and not gloss over. I was reading a book recently and the main character was raped. Then we were done. I was like nothing-

Denise Wolf [31:00]:

[crosstalk 00:31:00] that's not how that goes.

Lynn Langan [31:01]:

That is absolutely not how that goes.

Denise Wolf [31:03]:

[crosstalk 00:31:03] like that.

Lynn Langan [31:05]:

Right, my fear is that the young girl who is reading that is like, "Well, I guess I gloss over that, this thing that happened to me. I guess I don't talk about it, or I don't have real feelings about it." Well, no. That's an injustice.

Alyssa Scolari [31:22]:

Yeah, and as you're both saying this, my adolescence is very much on the forefront of my brain just b because of all the inner child work that I've been doing recently. I have lots of memories from my adolescence, and I was in school. The time that I was in middle school, we didn't talk about this stuff. This really wasn't something that got talked about not even in the slightest. Even today, when it is getting talked about, it's usually not getting talked about correctly, or not handled well. So, we've got a long way to go, but that's a whole other podcast.

I turned to books. I was such a reader, and I turned to all of these young adult novels. I remember... As you were saying that Lynn, I'm sitting here and the feeling that I used to feel as a 14 year old is coming back to me, where I was opening these books, these young adult novels, trying to find the darkest ones I could find. I need the darkest book that is in this section that somebody will let me take from this God forsaken school library. I would read it and look, and it would touch on something dark, and that to me would be what I needed to get into. I would be like, "Okay, we're talking about drugs here. We're talking about sexual abuse here." My 14 year old brain is like, "I need more of this. I need more of this. What do you mean you were raped? Are we ever going to talk about this?"

No, we're just going to talk about how you got into a fight with your best friend now, and that's the plot. The rape is... So, I love that you're doing that because I agree, and I think that that is such a missing piece for so many young adult novels, is that for Hollywood purposes, for selling purposes, for stigma purposes, because we don't like to talk about these things, a lot of authors gloss over it. There's not many people who dig right into the core and look at all facets of it, because it's uncomfortable for folks.

Lynn Langan [33:34]:

Yep. Yeah, definitely. There's going to be times where the reader's going to be uncomfortable in Duke and the Lonely Boy, and that's appropriate. My only hope is that I did a good enough job that if it touches one kid's life, if it's a map for one kid's life, then I've done my job. That's kind of what my philosophy is on that. I want to be authentic and give you a real picture of what's going on.

Alyssa Scolari [34:04]:

Yeah.

Lynn Langan [34:05]:

Sometimes that's ugly.

Alyssa Scolari [34:08]:

Sometimes it's ugly, but that's what's so helpful. I know I shared this when we were going back and forth in emails, but for me the book that I was finally able to get my hands on that went into detail, this book it was called Almost Lost. It was the journey of a teenager's healing process and recovery from addiction, and it's the transcript of his therapy sessions were in the book. I read that book and I felt like I was home. Not only did I feel like that therapist in that book was speaking to me as a 14 year old, I was in the eighth grade when I read this book and did a book report on it, but in that moment that book told me this is what I need to do with the rest of my life.

When you say "If this book can help one person," I guarantee it's going to help so many more than that because I see what a book did for me. It can change lives.

Lynn Langan [35:09]:

Right, absolutely. There's a theory I have to bring up here.

Alyssa Scolari [35:12]:

Please do. Please do.

Denise Wolf [35:16]:

A theory about why looking at art, why we have sort of these "oh my gosh" relief moments like you're say the art museum, or listening to a piece of well composed music or whatever it is. So, [inaudible 00:35:29] have this series born in psychology to arts that we take a well crafted piece of art, like [inaudible 00:35:36], but we take our defuse tensions and anxieties from our lives, the day, whatever it is, project it into the work of art or reading a book, and through resolution of the formal elements, story after story, our plot, characters, all that kind of stuff, we then experience a sense of our own relief or release of tension, cortisol, all that kind of stuff.

I'm really connecting that to when story and your story, and my story of the dark, dark books that I dug out, or the banned books from the library [crosstalk 00:36:11]. Even if it wasn't directly my story to be able to be part of somebody else's that reflected a part of me, that's well crafted, we get a sense of relief and release.

Lynn Langan [36:23]:

Right, absolutely. Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [36:26]:

Yeah. I have never heard of that before, and that is fascinating. As you're sitting here, I'm such a dork, as you're sitting here saying that, I'm going "Oh shit, that's why I love Harry Potter so much. That's why I can't stop reading Harry Potter."

Lynn Langan [36:46]:

Yes.

Denise Wolf [36:47]:

Right, yeah. There's a part of us that we project into these works of art. Then through the character's resolution we experience a sense of our own. Does that mean it's going to fix your problems? No, that's not at all what I'm saying.

Lynn Langan [36:59]:

No. But sometimes, think we're all saying it too, it's nice to not feel alone. We're not alone and that. Even if it's not our story, if it's just something that's sort of singular or where we can insert ourself, even it's just a false victory because you read the character's victory, it does give you hope.

Alyssa Scolari [37:21]:

Yes.

Lynn Langan [37:22]:

And hope is all you really need at the end of the day, because if you feel that you have that, some kind of glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel per se, then you're going to chuck through to the end and find it for yourself. I think.

Denise Wolf [37:22]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [37:38]:

Yes. When you are dealing with the biology of an adolescent brain, and their emotional response center is on fire, and their prefrontal cortex, the place for rational thought is under-developed, hope can be a hard, hard thing to come by.

Denise Wolf [38:06]:

Very. Yeah, it's abstract. I think in adolescent, the top third of their brain is like under construction.

Lynn Langan [38:13]:

Right.

Denise Wolf [38:14]:

It's not even there. So, hope is [crosstalk 00:38:16] that belongs in that top third. So, you can talk about it, you have to feel about it. That's where art comes in, to create that-

Lynn Langan [38:28]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [38:31]:

Yeah.

Lynn Langan [38:33]:

There were several scenes in this book that I wrote, and then I would walk away from my desk and come back and be like, "Nope, you wrote that as an adult. Stop. You can't fix the problems like that. Stop it."

Alyssa Scolari [38:50]:

Yeah, now this might a little bit of a, I guess, abstract question, but was there anything that you had to do to be able to really channel your inner adolescent? Or is that something that's very easily accessible to you?

Lynn Langan [39:05]:

It's something I think is very easily accessible to me, for some reason. It's a gift that [crosstalk 00:39:11]-

Alyssa Scolari [39:11]:

It's a gift. A gift and a curse.

Lynn Langan [39:15]:

[crosstalk 00:39:15]. It's both those things. I was reading this book. I'm dyslexic, so there's book about... A dyslexic author wrote this book about the gifts of being dyslexic. One of the things is that the way we form memories around the events that are happening because for a normal brain it goes syntax... What's that word? Here we go, [crosstalk 00:39:39].

Denise Wolf [39:39]:

It's synapsis.

Lynn Langan [39:41]:

Synapsis. But for a dyslexic brain, it kind of takes a U turn. It pings differently, and because of that we're really grounded in memory. We have an excellent memory for all things, but that's kind of like our survival guide because it's how we thrive. Because of that, I can basically tell you everything that's happened in my life. My memory, for some reason, well not for some reason, for that reason is extremely strong. When I sit down to write these adolescent books, I can just sit down and be like, "Okay, you're 17. Go." You got to think of high school, of events, and just remember how small my brain was, or what I was thinking or feeling at that point. Then I can dive in. That's how I know when I'm not being authentic to the characters or the voice, is when I feel like my adult brain is coming in and being like, "Well, that was easy." I'm like, wait no, it shouldn't be easy. It's not an easy [crosstalk 00:40:39] job. You can't think like that.

I feel like because of all of that, that's why I'm very good with my memories and all of that.

Denise Wolf [40:47]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative], it makes sense.

Lynn Langan [40:48]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative], I'm very in touch with that.

Denise Wolf [40:52]:

Fun fact about Lynn, oh my gosh, this so cool, Lynn has soundtracks or song for the characters, so trying to get into character, then they're like, "Oh I need to listen [crosstalk 00:41:03]."

Alyssa Scolari [41:03]:

Really? Oh, that's so cool.

Lynn Langan [41:06]:

Right, yeah. It's that initial, here's the story that I'm thinking in my head. Here's the soundtrack that I'm going to put to that, and [inaudible 00:41:14] music. It's very helpful in rewrites because my agent's coming back and saying, "Go into this novel and fix this problem." I'm like, "What? That was so long ago. Oh, I know. I'll just hit this play button right here." And then boom, I'm right back into their world. I'm right there.

Alyssa Scolari [41:32]:

That is brilliant. Where did you even think to be able to do that? [inaudible 00:41:38] music, depending on whatever you put on, can get you anywhere. Anywhere you want to go-

Lynn Langan [41:45]:

Yes, anywhere you want to go.

Alyssa Scolari [41:46]:

Music will take you there.

Lynn Langan [41:48]:

Yes, it will take you there. The writing process is unique in the fact that you sit down to the computer and you're asking yourself to leave yourself. You're asking yourself to forget about whatever troubles you had that day, or your perspective of the world, or sometimes your gender, and go. As a writer, that's the thing that you have to work on the most, is who is actually at the keyboard today? Is it Lynn, or is it Duke, or is it Tommy? Who is it? In order for me to train my mind to do that, when I first wrote my first novel, I would play their songs. I would play them three or four times before I even put my hands to the keyboard because I knew I had to listen to it repeatedly to get all of my personal baggage out of the way so that the character could step forward and would be influenced in my writing.

I can do it now without music. It's really just training your... It's almost like a meditative state, is what I would best explain. You consciously ask yourself to exit.

Alyssa Scolari [42:54]:

That's fascinating and brilliant. Wow.

Denise Wolf [42:59]:

Something else [crosstalk 00:43:00] tell me about writing, because I've done some academic writing, is to write first with an old timey pen on paper. There's something about that kinesthetic sensory, just kind of writing actual words on paper and then the first edit becomes entering it into the keyboard. That connects so much more with sort of the I think emotional part of ourselves.

Lynn Langan [43:25]:

Absolutely. I usually edit... My first round, I'll print out the manuscript and edit that way because there's something about that process that gets you at a computer.

Alyssa Scolari [43:35]:

Agreed.

Lynn Langan [43:36]:

It's more authentic to you.

Alyssa Scolari [43:38]:

Yes, agreed. There's something so different that comes out of you when you are physically writing than hitting buttons on a keyboard. It's a completely different experience.

Lynn Langan [43:51]:

Absolutely, yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [43:54]:

I talk about journaling with some of my kids who I feel like it might be helpful for, and they're like, "Can I just type it out on my phone?" I'm like, "Hell no."

Lynn Langan [44:04]:

No. [crosstalk 00:44:06]. Get that pen in your hand. Feel it. [crosstalk 00:44:08].

Alyssa Scolari [44:08]:

And get a fun pen, right?

Lynn Langan [44:10]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [44:11]:

I have a set of I think it's like 100 pack. Oh God, 100 pack of glitter gel pens. I'm still a giant child.

Denise Wolf [44:21]:

Yep. Yeah. Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Are they scented?

Alyssa Scolari [44:26]:

Denise, I looked for the scented ones. Lord knows that I tried. Unfortunately, they're not.

Denise Wolf [44:31]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [44:34]:

But I wish. The last question I want to ask you, because I also think this is important because I do know that we have listeners out there who are parents, and if they don't have an adolescent currently, they have an up and coming adolescent or adolescents at home. Do you feel that this book is one that can also help parents and even any adults who work with kids get a better view inside the mind of a kid, which will then also better help them to relate to their kid in real life? Does that make sense?

Denise Wolf [45:14]:

Yes and yes.

Alyssa Scolari [45:15]:

Okay.

Lynn Langan [45:18]:

One of the things that you try to do as a young adult writer is remembering the place of everybody in their lives. Yes, you're living in a family. Yes, you have chores and you have bedtimes, and you have all those things. That's all true. But what's really important is the social aspect. That's where you're getting all your connections, and that's the most important part. As a parent, I think it's easy to look at your 17 or 16 year old kid and forget that there's this whole other life that is very complicated. You're just thinking they're upstairs in their room. They're taking out the trash. It's easy to get into the routine of life and forget that there's these little stories that these kids are having that have nothing to do with you. [crosstalk 00:46:08]. You can only hope that you're a great parent and you modeled well, because they're out there in the real world by themselves, and this is the time.

I think that's why I like this age, because it is the loosening of the parents and the influence, and the family structure, which is also very hard on the parents, but it's just as hard on the kids. It's that constant, I think you see that a lot with Duke, where he feels guilty for not watching football with his dad because that's what they used to do. He has a social life now, and he needs to go out with his friends, but he still has that little internal battle like, "I'm going," but there's also a sadness that I know that this slipping away. Even though I'm looking forward to my independence, it is also scary. I think for both parents and kids, that's a good reminder of that.

Denise Wolf [47:01]:

Right, that it's all the feels. It's all the feels. I had to do an art engagement with youth, so I had to craft a 50 message about adolescents to adolescence. So, that's not a lot of words. Lynn helped me write it, thank you, and it started off with "No matter what, it's going to hurt." It was really great, if I do say so, and I submitted and they changed it before publication and didn't check with me. So, when I read my message to adolescents in this glossy thing they put out, it was like being a teen is great. I'm like, fuck no.

Alyssa Scolari [47:37]:

What the fuck?

Denise Wolf [47:39]:

[crosstalk 00:47:39] I said it's going to hurt, but it's okay.

Alyssa Scolari [47:44]:

You wrote, "It's going to hurt," and they took that and said, "Being a teen is great"?

Denise Wolf [47:44]:

Yeah.

Lynn Langan [47:50]:

Yeah.

Denise Wolf [47:51]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative], [crosstalk 00:47:52].

Alyssa Scolari [47:51]:

Jesus Lord Almighty.

Denise Wolf [47:55]:

To your question earlier, Alyssa, I think it's really valuable and important for adults, educators remind ourselves of all that angsty stuff, all the feels. Get back into that. Like, no matter what it's going to hurt. You're going to be okay, but can't escape the pain. That's where growth happens.

Lynn Langan [48:15]:

Right, exactly. Just go ahead and feel what you need to feel. It'll be funny if you interviewed I would say Duke's family, they also I think would come away and have the perspective that everything in Duke's life is okay, where it's not. His family member that really knows that is his sister, which is also good for parents to I think see from that angle that siblings have that connection with each other and they can look out for each other, or they can call each other out on their bullshit, or any of that. Yeah, it's just a weird time in the like where everybody's learning how to let go of this family unit.

Denise Wolf [48:57]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [49:00]:

I think the most important part is just what both of you were speaking to is, being able as adults to get back in touch with not just the angst, but all of the feelings. I think so much of adulthood has become just about numbing out, by working 9:00 to 5:00, playing music or a podcast, or a news radio in the car to and from work. You come home. You eat. You do whatever. You go to bed, and you do it all the next days. Weekends stereotypically include going out, drinking, this, that... it's so focused around just numbing out. As adults, we almost just even have time for our feelings. I think that's what makes the three of us so fucking incredible, because I don't sense that we do that. We feel things.

Denise Wolf [49:52]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Lynn Langan [49:52]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [49:53]:

And refuse to live in the numbed out state that I think a lot of adults have found themselves in.

Denise Wolf [50:01]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Lynn Langan [50:01]:

Yeah. I should say I think one of the best advice that Denise has ever given me in my life was that she said, when I was going through some tough times, she was like "Look, pull up a chair. Make yourself a cup of tea. Get to know that feeling that you're feeling. Ask it questions. Just don't shy away from it. Lean into it." It's really good advice to remember that as an adult, you're right, we get into these routines and again, we get more and more narrow in our thinking, in the way... I think that's part of society's pressure too, like don't talk about your feelings. Just do, do, do. It's okay to have feelings around if you want to feel sad. It's okay to feel sad. If things are not working out, it's okay that things aren't working out. It's not the end of the world. That's what's so fun about adolescents too is that they can fall down and get back up. You're so resilient when you're young, because you just haven't really quite learned to stay on the floor.

I think that's probably what the three of us have learned, we keep standing up. We're going to take the punches in the ring and it's going to hurt, but we keep going and we're going to feel those feelings, we're going to figure out how not to get hit by that again-

Denise Wolf [51:17]:

But we probably will.

Lynn Langan [51:18]:

We probably will.

Denise Wolf [51:19]:

We will. [crosstalk 00:51:20].

Lynn Langan [51:22]:

Yeah, we won't shy away from it.

Denise Wolf [51:23]:

Yeah, and we'll have great stories to tell.

Lynn Langan [51:26]:

Yeah, exactly.

Alyssa Scolari [51:27]:

Yes, that's living. To me, that's living at it's fullest.

Lynn Langan [51:31]:

Right, absolutely.

Denise Wolf [51:33]:

Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [51:34]:

I love it.

Lynn Langan [51:34]:

Through mistakes. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [51:37]:

If people would like to buy this book, where on earth can they find it? I know Amazon is one, but I also want to plug if it's in any kind of small businesses or anything like that, or is it mostly Amazon?

Lynn Langan [51:50]:

Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the great and wonderful Bookshop where you can go on and order it and it fosters independent bookstores. So, if you buy it from Bookshop it will be pulled from your local store. Bookshop.org, yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [52:06]:

Bookshop.org. Okay, I will make sure... So yeah, to the listeners out there, this is a book you absolutely going to want to get your hands on, whether you're an adolescent tuning in, whether you're in the young adult phase of your life, whether you have kids of you own, whether you are a teacher, or a therapist, truthfully even if you're a therapist who works with adults, so many of the adults that you're working with have unresolved childhood issues. I don't like the word "issues", but I can't think of a better word right now. It's very important to be able to tap into this type of stuff. Honestly, this book is very useful for everybody. Of course, feel free to use Amazon because it'll get to you very quickly, but also I am going to put the other link in there because, you know, support your local bookstore, or support small businesses as well.

So, head over to the show notes. Denise and Lynn, thank you for a wonderful episode. I love talking about kids.

Lynn Langan [53:13]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [53:14]:

It's been fun.

Lynn Langan [53:14]:

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Denise Wolf [53:16]:

Yeah, thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [53:17]:

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information please head over to LightAfterTrauma.com, or you can also follow us on social media. On Instagram, we @LightAfterTrauma. On Twitter, it is @LightAfterPod. Lastly, please head over to Patreon.com/LightAfterTrauma to support our show. We are asking for $5.00 a month, which is the equivalent to a cup of coffee at Starbucks. So, please head on over. Again, that's Patreon.com/LightAfterTrauma. Thank you, and we appreciate your support.

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